Warning! Joie's first bloody nose

Ahh the joys of motherhood!!  There is nothing I love more then catching dripping blood with my bare hands!  Today we had my friend Janica and her two girls, Emily and Allyson, over to play for a couple of hours and Joie and Emily were just playing around and getting a little crazy.  Joie was trying to give her a huge bear hug behind and Emily was trying to squirm out of it when Joie got a nice bonk to the nose.  She gave a whimper and ran to me with her hand over her nose and like the good mom I am I said "Its okay Joie, don't cry, you're fine".  Of course she uncovered her nose and there was blood everywhere.  Poor Joie got my bloody nose genetics.  When I was younger I got horrible bloody noses all the time so I'm sure Emily barely tapped Joie's nose but it was enough to turn on the faucet.  It was pouring out pretty good for the first 10 minutes or so and since I'm such an amazing mom I grabbed my camera and took a picture before cleaning it up.  Sorry for the graphic image.

On another note, I am feeling SO blessed right now.  I don't mean to be one of those corny women who gushes about how amazing her life is or anything but things are pretty great!  I am a pretty social person and even though I definitely need some quite time I also love spending time with people and I was really worried when we moved I would spend all day alone with the kids in my apartment.  Since we have moved here, however, I have met so many women that I would already consider to be my good friends.  There are a handful of women from church, some wives of Andrew's co-workers, and I have an amazing neighbor too!  All of these people have kids close to the same age as my kids and it has just been so wonderful and so much fun.  I also get to see my Grandma (whom Joie has renamed Gumi Gumi) at least once a week.  She has practically turned her house into a little nursery with a pack and play, toys, a bouncer thing for Berkeley, a swing in the back yard, changes of clothes, and about a million other awesome things.  Life still has trials but I must admit that in general, things are pretty awesome right now!

Since my last two posts were mainly about Joie I just had to throw in a little picture of my Berkey too!

Here are a couple little pictures I snapped at the beach yesterday too.  My sister in law took some really cute pictures so when she gets me the disc I will have to post some of those too!

Love her little baby boobies!!

My date with Joie

Yesterday Joie and I went on a little mommy daughter date to Disneyland!  I was so excited to spend a little alone time with my baby girl!!  While we were driving to Disneyland I heard a huge gasp come from the back seat and Joie screamed "OH NO, Where is my Berkeley Boo?" and was in a panic that Berkeley wasn't with us.  I never put much thought into it but I never go anywhere without both of the kids and I never thought it would make Joie sad but she asked me tons of times last night where her baby sister was and if daddy was going to bring her to Disneyland so she could be with us.  It was so adorable!

Once we got there we met up with my friend Darrien and her little boy Blaise.  Joie and Blaise are BEST friends and love to play together.  We had such a blast hitting up a few rides and watching the parade.

It was an absolute blast to go out with just Joie.  I LOVE spending time with both of my kids and you better believe I missed Berkeley (and Andrew of course) like crazy while I was there but I miss spending time with just Joie.  We laughed and ran and we didn't have to stop to make bottles or nurse the baby or anything like that.  Even in the drive home while it was dark she kept telling me it was okay for her to be loud because Berkeley wasn't sleeping in the car.  We had so much fun.  I also can't wait until Berkeley is old enough for her to enjoy mommy daughter dates too!  I love this little girl!  She helps me remember to make life fun and enjoy all the crazy little moments.

(as some of you may have noticed, Joie has a new favorite dress.  It is this zebra dress.  Her pink dress use to be her favorite and its about all she wore for 6 months.  I believe in letting your kids pick out their own outfits because I feel like its one of the few ways they can express themselves so get use to seeing the zebra dress because it is her newest obsession)

Berkeley Girl

Well I meant to do a 6 month post for Berkeley and I got busy and now here we are and girlfriend is almost 8 months old.  Woops!  Better late then never I guess.

Berkeley is doing SO wonderful.  She is an absolute joy!  She is now crawling, pulling up to standing, waving, clapping, giving kisses, and sleeping through the night (most of the time).  She is such a sweet baby girl.  She is so content and happy.  She ADORES little kids.  She will give smiles to pretty much everyone but when any kids get close to her, especially her big sister, she just laughs and laughs.  This is typically her reaction to dogs as well.  When Joie was a baby we had a more strict schedule and I pretty much always made it home so Joie could take her naps at a certain time of day but since I now have a 3 year old my life can't really revolve around Berkeley's nap schedule.  This little girl is SO  good about being flexible.  She is perfectly happy to take a nap in the car while we run errands, in the stroller if we are out and about, sometimes I can still even get her to fall asleep in my arms at church, and yesterday she even fell asleep in the wagon while I was bringing groceries up to our apartment.   She is a MAJOR mommy's girl, however, her favorite person is still Joie.  If Joie is in the room she doesn't even care about anyone else.  I love this little girl so much and I am SO glad that I am her mommy!  The girls are about to have well child check ups so stay tuned for Berkeley's weight.  Last time she was weighed she was 16 lbs but I'm willing to bet it is a little more now.  As you can see, girlfriend is chunky!!

Can you ever have too many naked bath pictures?? I think not!

I told you this girl will sleep anywhere.  This was at Disneyland.

While I was at work the other night Andrew put a bunch of the girls toys in the wagon then let them play in it. He snapped this picture and when I saw it I thought Berkeley and Joie looked so much a like!!

Joie's third birthday

I absolutely cannot believe that my baby girl is 3 years old!  We headed to Vegas last weekend because my mom planned a big surprise 50th birthday party for my dad.  We decided to have a birthday party for Joie the day after my dads.  She wanted a unicorn/my little pony party so we gave her one!  I took a lot of video clips of the party and my mom took most of the pictures and I forgot to get them off her memory card (stay tuned).  It was so much fun because she was finally at an age where she was so excited for her birthday.  She knew what presents were, she knew she was going to get to eat cake and blow out candles and do all the fun birthday stuff.

Joie is such a fun little girl.  She loves to dress herself these days and always in dresses or skirts.  She loves to be super girly and play princesses and unicorns and dress up but she is also the toughest little girl I know.  She loves to go kick a soccer ball and/or play catch with her daddy.  She is absolutely fearless at the playground and her legs are always covered in bruises but she is super tough and very seldom cries because of getting hurt (however, she cries for plenty of other reasons).  She is extremely independent and wants to do EVERYTHING by herself.  Sometimes this is very helpful and sometimes this drives me absolutely crazy.  It is really nice, however, that when I'm really busy she is fine with spending an hour or two in her room by herself playing.  I could gush about how amazing I think she is for hours but I will spare all of you.  She is such a good sister and such a sweet daughter.  She makes us happy everyday (even the days when she also drives us crazy) and I can't imagine my life without her in it.  I love you Joie Low!  Happy 3rd Birthday!

Since most of the birthday pictures are on my moms camera I won't be able to post them for a couple weeks until I can get my hands on her memory card so here are some pictures I have of Joie lately.

This one is actually from her birthday.  She wanted a "bike" just like the one my mom has so we found one that is pink and got it for her for her birthday and of course we had to get her the unicorn helmet because she is beyond obsessed with unicorns right now.

Looks like someone is ready for fall!  Joie loves to dress up in my Uggs (and don't judge my super messy apartment I promise it is normally not like that).

Joie finally got to meet Cinderella at Disneyland and she was SOOOO excited.  She loves going to Disneyland and so do I!  We have had so much fun taking advantage of our Disney passes!