Five Year Questions and a Letter to my Baby!

To my sweet Jacob,

You're five years old!  I cannot believe it.  I know it sounds very cliche, but it's true ... it feels like you were just born.  You've gone from this tiny 4 lb premie to a wild, outgoing, stubborn yet lovable 5 year old.  You are starting Kindergarten in just a few short weeks!!  Please forgive me if I cry on your first day of "big boy" school. :)  Here's a quick trip down memory lane ...

 

 On your birthday - May 9, 2008

   

 On your first birthday - May 9, 2009

   

 On your second birthday with your Aunt Ashlee - May 9, 2010

   

 On your third birthday - May 9, 2011

   

 On your fourth birthday - May 9, 2012

   

And, finally, on your fifth birthday - May 9, 2013 

Just look at how you've grown over the past five years! Last year we started asking you 20 questions and recording your answers, so we could see how they change through the years. Here's your questions from this year and your answers. 

1. What is your favorite color? Orange and Red 

2. What is your favorite toy? My limo 

3. What is your favorite fruit? Oranges 

4. What is your favorite tv show? Ninja Turtles 

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Turkey and Cheese sandwich 

6. What is your favorite outfit? Firefighter outfit 

7. What is your favorite game? Hide n Go Seek 

8. What is your favorite snack? Fruit Roll-ups 

9. What is your favorite animal? Penguin 

10. What is your favorite song? The Fresh Beat Band song 

11. What is your favorite book? Firefighter Book 

12. Who is your best friend? Josh (cousin) 

13. What is your favorite cereal? Shredded Wheat 

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Ride my bike and play in the water 

15. What is your favorite drink? Blue juice (MIO) 

16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas 

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Nothing 

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Cereal 

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Crab, Lobster and Shrimp 

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Firefighter 

 And, for fun I put together a scrapbook page to document your questions and answers from last year and this year, so we could see a side-by-side comparison. 

   

 I wish I could find your stats from your check-up with the pediatrician, but I cannot. If I do find them, I'll come back here to update this post because I like to have them to go back and look at them later. 

 These past five years have been amazing. I've learned so much ... you've taught me things I never thought I'd learn. I love you, Bubba!! Can't wait to see what this next year holds for us. 

 Love you, Mommy

Jacob's 5th Birthday!

Hard to believe it, but my first born, my little tiny 4lb-er is 5 years old now!  I kind of feel bad as we haven't had a true blue party for him the past two years, but I did do a "Party in the Park" for him one day after school with all his classmates and that was a lot of fun!

Anyway, on to the actual day.  May 9, 2013 Jacob turned 5!

In the morning we had the Mother's Day Tea at school and my mom was able to go to that with us, so that was nice.  I think Jacob really loved having Gee there.  After school we came home and had lunch and put Henry down for a nap.  Basic, normal, every day stuff.

Then that evening after John got home from work and my parents got back to our house, John took Jacob to the store with him, so we could get his presents set up in the house.  That was pretty fun, I gotta say!  I loved the "surprise" factor that we hadn't done up to this point.  When he came in the house he was pretty excited to see all his presents!

He spent the first half hour or so after getting home from the store opening presents, and then before we had dinner, he took his bike out for a spin.  It was pretty slow going at first because he had to get used to peddling a bike and his little legs weren't that strong to make it up small hills, so needless to say for the first few weeks he had the bike we spent more time pushing him on it then he spent actually peddling it himself. And, of course baby brother, Henry, had to get on his little tricycle and try to keep up with his big brother.  :)  He's such a cutie!

   

 

   

 After they rode their bikes for a bit, John and I came in to start his birthday dinner: crab legs, corn-on-the-cob and roasted red potatoes. YUM!  Not a lot of five year olds have that for their birthday dinner (not a lot of five year olds WANT that for their birthday dinner)!  Anyway, we had a wonderfully yummy dinner and then it was time for some cake and singing!!  Jacob requested a tie-dyed cake, so that's what he had for his birthday.  It turned out really cute and tasted even better!!

 

I think our boy had a pretty awesome day, I know we did, celebrating his birth! :)

Lucky Number 7!

Let me preface this by saying, I realize I'm two months late on this blog post.  I'm so far behind on ALL my blog posts, but I'm slowly getting caught up, so please bear with me!

Anywho, May 6, 2013 was our SEVENTH wedding anniversary.  Lucky number 7!  I feel like we've come so far from the people we were when we got married.  We've fought more times than I care to think of, but made up just as many. We've been on countless vacations together. We've brought two beautiful children in to this crazy world.  We've moved 4 times, but seem to finally be settled some place that is suited well for us.  We've been through a lot, and I'm sure will go through many more ups and downs throughout the years, but I wouldn't want to go through them with anyone else.

I love you, babe!  You're the best husband and best friend a girl could ever hope for.  You're a wonderful, hands on daddy, too.  Our babies are blessed beyond measure to be able to call you their daddy!  <3 p="">
And, while I'm at it ... the other night while looking through some old photos, I came across a CD with a bunch of photos from our wedding and honeymoon, so I scrapped a few of them.  :)  Here they are for your viewing pleasure:

Mother's Day Tea

This has been probably my favorite part of Jacob attending St. Timothy's preschool.  The Mother's Day Tea they do every year.  It never fails to bring tears to my eyes (happy tears) watching all the kids sing songs about their moms.  Even as I type I get a little teary.  It's just the sweetest thing ever!

This year the Mother's Day Tea fell on Jacob's birthday, so we ended up celebrating his birthday with his class the following week.  My mom was able to go with us, so it was extra special for me and for Jacob.  I'm excited to see what his new school will do to celebrate Mother's Day next year.

Here are a few photos from the day ....

Henry and Gee waiting for the show to start. 

 

Here they are singing.  I loved every minute of it!

 

Jacob's entire class and then him with a few of his buddies.

And, last Jacob with both teachers.  They were absolutely wonderful!  We're gonna miss them next year for sure. 

March Digi Scrapping & Therapy?

After losing my sister back in October I've been trying to keep myself super busy.  The kids keep me plenty busy, but I've been looking for new hobbies (which is why I've been away from my blog for some long) in which to throw myself.  My photography hobby (hopefully turned business soon) is one of them.  It has kept me SUPER busy, and therefore I don't think about missing Ashlee as much.  I should add that I still miss her terribly and think about her every single day, I just don't think about how much I miss her as often since I'm so busy.  Make sense? lol  Anyway, digital scrapbooking has been my other hobby I've recently taken up and it has kind of consumed all my free time (which isn't much).

As I mentioned above, I've FINALLY learned how to use the Photoshop program I've had installed on my computer for the past THREE years.  How sad is that, that it took me that long to figure it out?? Well, thanks to quite a few You Tube videos, I finally saw what my friend, Erin, had been talking about ... "layers, layers, layers".  And, again, thanks to Erin, I joined an amazing digital scrapbooking forum called Scrap Takeout where I've been learning things here and there, and getting some amazing inspiration from other creative minds!

Here is what I was up to in March (when I learned how to scrap) ... you will notice as I start posting more and more layouts here that they are improving, but ya know ... Rome wasn't built in a day people.  :)

Thanks for looking!  I'll be posting April's layouts soon! :)

Quick update ...

I have been SO busy lately with other commitments and ventures that I have totally been slacking on the blog front!  Maybe no one noticed, but I need to get back in to it if for nothing more than to continue documenting our life as a family.  It's only been a two month hiatus, but a lot has happened.  I'll make separate posts for each, but real quickly here is an overview of what we've been up to.

Heather (me) has joined a super fun digital scrapbooking forum called Scrap Takeout.  I absolutely love it there!  I've also joined the praise team there and one of the creative teams, so this alone keeps me pretty busy.  I'll be making separate posts to show off the pages I've made lately.  I will say that in the past two months I've finally managed to get Jacob's first scrapbook made and ordered, so I'm pretty excited about that!  I've also, and this is the biggie, started putting together a photography portfolio in hopes of starting my business this fall once Jacob is in school full-time.  Here is a link to my Facebook page: Photos by Heather Z.  I also recently bought the URL for my website and started working on that, but that's going to be a huge work in progress ... it's not published yet or anything, but once it is I will post a link here for that as well.  :)  Anyway, I've been doing complimentary sessions as kind of a training program for me to learn more about the right lighting, poses and how I want to actually RUN my business.  There are a lot of logistics I didn't really think about before hand.  haha  Plus, I don't want to take anyone's money until a) I feel confident with my work and b) I am a legal company that will pay taxes at the end of the year.  The last thing I need is to get a hefty fine for taking money and not paying taxes on it!  So, before I start charging I also need to go get a tax id number.

John has been working a lot, as usual.  Thank goodness for him.  He supports our family financially, but also supports my dream of being a photographer.  He's been watching the kids every weekend while I go out on photo shoots and he's been supportive of me trying to balance my work for his company as well as editing photos during the week. It's been rough, but he's always been my rock and my number one fan.  He finally got his motorcycle back from the shop and while I'm not a huge fan of him riding it, I know it's his hobby and it's fun for him.  I don't want to take that away from him, so I just don't say much.  I just always say a silent prayer when he goes out for a ride.  Anyway, he's happy that warmer weather is finally here, so he can go out riding.  Now if the weathermen could just get it right as to whether it's going to rain or not!

Jacob turned five at the beginning of May!  Hard to believe my sweet little 4 lb-er is now a healthy, happy, thriving five year old!  I'll have another post about his birthday and all about him turning five at a later time. :) At the end of May he graduated from preschool!  Crazy!!  He'll be starting Kindergarten in the fall and I'm just not sure I'm ready for it, but he sure is.  It's all he talks about!

And, our little Henry is well .. still Henry!  lol  He's still my sweet little baby even though he's talking more.  He's talking in full sentences (but it's still hard to understand a lot of what he says) and really knows what he wants.  The terrible twos are in full swing now, but I still don't think he's as hard as Jacob was/is.  Either he's just NOT as hard or it's because he's my second child and I know better how to deal with the tantrums, etc., now because he has just seemed so much easier than his brother.  I'm looking forward to spending some one-on-one time with his this fall when Jacob's in school full-time, but I know the following year when he starts preschool is going to be SO hard on me.