RAISING JOEY

Xmas Pics 2009

Just a few weeks late but here are our pictures from our trip to Ohio for Christmas. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!!!

To all of our readers, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,
Jessica, Patrick, Joey, Leah and Aiden

Let There Be Peace on Earth

I posted this video last year and thought it would be good to post it again. Brings me to tears when I watch it, absolutely beautiful and moving!!

Christmas 2008!

We had such an awesome Christmas! Patrick and Joey had colds but that didn’t stop us from having fun!

“Ma, are you starting with the pictures already?!”

Jenny McCarthy’s book!

Daddy got a Giants Christmas this year!

I got a Pandora bracelet from my wonderful hubby!

“Mommy, I think this book is too advanced for me…”

“Geez, get this thing off my forehead!”

Joey & his PahPaw!

Me & my mom!

The Heeran girls!

Me & my babies!!!

To all my blog readers…

Hey CDSC Families

For those of you that read this, today’s Holiday Party in North Haven has been canceled but will be rescheduled for a later date due to the ice storm that suppose to hit the southern part of CT including North Haven.

So much excitement!

We had one heck of a snowstorm last night! I love it just in time for Christmas! It’s looking like we’ll have a white Christmas here in Connecticut this year!

My parents are currently on their way up here to spend the holiday with us and are driving through Pennsylvania as I write this. Thankfully so far, they’ve had good weather but are driving my mom’s 4×4 truck just in case!

Tomorrow we have the CDSC’s Holiday Party and I’m so excited for that as well. A pasta dinner with music and Santa! I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures!

Also, tomorrow evening (I almost forgot to mention), my sister in law and her husband are coming in from Washington DC! I can’t wait to see them too! What an exciting upcoming week!

Busy, busy, busy!

I’ve been so busy the past couple of days! Finishing up Christmas Cards, baking cookies, fudge, and other goodies for my hubby to take to work, wrapping the last of our x-mas gifts, doing laundry, rearranging our bedroom, cleaning the house & preparing for my parents to arrive on Saturday for the week of Christmas!

So much to do, so little time!

I do have to admit, I am rather excited for Friday, you see, it’s my dear friend Melissa’s birthday and Mel & her son Dillon are coming over for her birthday dinner and a sleep over! YAY!!!!!

Geez, on a sour note, I smell poopy (again), I’m off to see who the culprit is!!

Wordless Wednesday & Special Exposure Wednesday

My kids are terrified of Santa….

For more Wordless Wednesdays, go visit 5 Minutes For Mom or the Wordless Wednesday’s Headquarters!

For more Special Exposure Wednesdays, go visit 5 Minutes For Special Needs!

5 Minutes For Mom Christmas Giveaways!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the ladies over at 5 Minutes For Mom?! They’re hosting several awesome giveaways just in time for Christmas!

Some of my favorites are…
Two copies of the 3-Disc standard definition DVD Version of WALL•E
$50.00 Gift Certificate toSudz N Bubbles
Epson Artisan 800 Printer
Multiple Moms Rock t-shirt
CARES Aviation Restraint System
Mrs. Goodbee Talking Dollhouse
$100.00 Gift Card to Sears
Get Cozy this Christmas with Lands’ End
Wholesome Groovy Girls
HP Photosmart Printer
Christmas DVDs for all ages and stages
Natural Wooden Toys From Cheekeyes
PlayStation®2 LEGO® Batman™ Bundle
Custom Photo Jewelry from J Woods
Educational Fun With All Star Buddies
StukOnU - Some Smart Jammies!
Win Warm Whiskers
Joe’s Jeans
PeaceLoveMom
Christmas Fun with RUSS
Super Toys from Step2
Stuff Their Stockings with Playskool/Hasbro

Speaking of Christmas…

I found this too cool! Wouldn’t your kids like a letter from Santa?! If so, check out this company! They even can get you a phone call from Santa too!

Wordless Wednesday

For more Wordless Wednedays, go here.

It’s time…

I’ve decided it’s time to start potty training Joey. He’s going to be 2 in March so it’s time! Wish us luck! I’m sure there will be many posts on potty training to come! I will leave you today with a couple pictures my brother emailed me from Christmas and I just have to share…

X-mas videos & pictures!

Now that I have a new mouse, I can post pictures from Christmas! There’s a video of Joey opening his bag of balls that was the hit of the day, pictures from Christmas morning (don’t mind me in my PJ’s), from Grandma’s house, from my brothers and from yesterday here at our house with my in-laws.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Christmas update

We’re back!! We had such a WONDERFUL time in Ohio with our family and friends! It’s so nice to get home and see everyone. Joey and Leah had a wonderful Christmas. They got so many gifts, I can’t even keep who gave what straight! Unfortunately, my computer mouse is on the outs… it scrolls right but not left so it’s nearly impossible for me to upload pictures so as soon as I can get to the store to buy a new mouse (hopefully tomorrow), I will upload pictures (and a few videos) of the kiddos & family. Christmas day alone, I took close to 200 pictures so I’ll have to go through all the pictures and pick out the best ones to share.

Joey was so funny on Christmas morning opening his gifts. He actually only opened one… a gift bag full of balls. After that, he wanted nothing to do with any of his other gifts, just the balls and the tissue paper from the bag! Leah slept through her first Christmas morning and opening of gifts but she got some darn cute outfits! 

We had my in-laws over today to exchange gifts. We were originally going to have them over this evening but I woke up this morning and was watching the news and learned that we are expecting another lovely winter storm tonight so we changed our Christmas party to this afternoon instead. So needless to say, I jumped out of bed and started cooking. I threw together a baked ziti dinner before 10am!! And I have to say that my favorite gift was from my brother in law and his wife Stephanie, they got me a new vacuum cleaner! My old one was actually a hand me down from my mother that is over 10 years old and has been dying a slow death for the past 2 years. So my mothers old vacuum has been retired and laid to rest! It feels kinda nice having a brand new vacuum, hahaha!

Well, until I can get to Best Buy (tomorrow, weather permitting), that’s it for now. Next post will have pictures from the past week!

Quick update

Wow, I’m finding less and less time to post on here! Things are crazy between changing diapers, feeding both kids, going Christmas shopping, laundry, dishes, and all the other household duties I do being a stay at home mom! Phew, I need a break! Thankfully we’re leaving tomorrow for Ohio to spend Christmas with my family!!

Leah is still being little Miss Cutie Pie. It seems like her cheeks are getting more and more chubby everyday!

Yesterday we took Joey to the hospital for his every 6 month ear cleaning. They sedated him with gas and gave his ears a good cleaning and there is such a major difference in his hearing! Last night Patrick opened a can of soda and the sound scared poor Joey to death! He was even scared of his Tickle Me Elmo Tx that he usually loves! Today I’ll leave you with my laundry helper…

“Sure Mom, I’ll help you fold the laundry!”

Visit with Santa

My sister in law, Eileen and I took the kids to see Santa last night and thankfully they both sat still and behaved long enough to get the picture taken. Of course, we couldn’t get one of Joey looking at the camera and smiling, instead we got one of his looking at the camera with his fingers in his mouth, but I’ll take it!!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree….

I couldn’t put up our regular 6 foot tree I usually do thanks to Joey. Any of you who have or have had a toddler know how impossible that can be. So off to Walmart I went and found a 4 foot tall tree to put up on an end table. I thought for sure he would pull it down off of there but so far so good. Our tree has been up since the day after Thanksgiving and it’s still in one piece, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t gotten Joey’s attention…

Did I mention how grateful I am that I didn’t put any of my good ornaments on the tree? I thought ahead and bought shatterproof ornaments! And the cool thing is, they really are shatterproof! They can withstand Joey throwing them into the wall, and dropping them onto & rolling them across the floor!

Christmas 2006

Just a quick post on our Christmas. It was such a great day. Just a quick recap… we woke up and went over to Patrick’s parents house, opened gifts, had breakfast, mom and I came back to our house to cook, took the food back to my in-laws, ate, then opened more gifts when Pat’s Grandma, aunts, uncle & cousins came over.

“Merry Christmas Mommy & Daddy!”

“Is this for me?”

“Cuddles with Mommy!”

“Thank you Aunt Kerry!”

“Toys, toys & more toys!”

If you would like to see the rest of our Christmas 2006 pictures, go here.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! Patrick and I just got back from Christmas mass. We left Joey at home with my parents. He wasn’t in the best of moods to take to church, hopefully next year he will be easier to take to church with us.

Tonight, my parents, Patrick and I will be exchanging our gifts, then in the morning we’re going over to Patrick’s parents house to exchange with everyone over there, then have dinner with everyone. Then later in the day Pat’s grandma, aunts and cousins will come over. BUSY DAY! I’ll be sure to post pictures in the next couple days.

This is my first Christmas away from Ohio. It’s really helping having my parents here. But I’ve never been away from my brother on Christmas. It’s weird. I didn’t think it would bother me as much as it does. Growing up, Terry was more like a father to me at times. He’s 16 years older than me and was always not only a brother, but a wonderful role model to me too. I’m really going to miss him the next couple of days. Merry Christmas Bubba, I miss you!

The Lord works in mysterious ways

The Lord definetly works in mysterous ways… I was so upset yesterday about our car breaking down, and not being able to afford heating oil along with our regular bills. Well, today Pat recieved a hoilday bonus. It’s enough toget the car fixed and pay for part of a tank of heating oil. Which I just called and it’s $2.39 a gallon! Ouch! Well, at least we’re going to have some extra money to help us!

In other news, Joey had a visit today from his physical therapist and his speech therapist, both is which went excellent! Joey worked very hard with his PT is reaching while sitting, attempting to stand and trying to get to the crawling position. He still has a long way to go with the standing and crawling, but he’s getting so good with his sitting and reaching! His SLP was very happy with his speech progress. She said he’s making all the sounds any infant should be making. She also said his eating his going great!

My parents are on their way to Connecticut from Ohio right now. They’re somewhere in Pennsylvania and I’m going crazy! It’s not been that long since I’ve seen my mom but I haven’t seen my dad since October! I can’t wait to have both of our families together for Christmas!

Also, I finally got my copies of Gifts! I don’t care that they have flaws on them, I just wanted a couple copies of them to share with my family! yay!

Baking madness!

What a weekend! I spent literally most of it baking cookies and candy to give out. The list of people I want to give goodies out to almost doubled since last year so yeah, I was a baking maniac!

Breaking my arm stirring the fudge!!

Chocolates are a pain to make! Halfway through, I started making them all solid instead of decorating them!

I love spritz cookies! I only made a triple batch All together over 250!

Double batch of peanut brittle!

Triple batch of fudge… over 6 pounds!

Chocolate & Christmas chip cookies, double batch!

Not pictured, candied pecans & sugar cookies. I still have to decorate the sugar cookies so I’ll be up late finished those tonight!

12 Days of Christmas

Since there’s only 12 days until Christmas (well Christmas Eve), I figured I would post an article I found online. It’s about the Origin of the 12 days of Christmas. Very interesting!