Mother's Day

Me and my four kiddos on Mother's Day!!

School Dance

Jenna and Marissa recently went to Steck's second annual school dance. And these are the fabulous outfits they deemed perfect for this outing! Sunglasses and all. (Thank you, Aunt Jan!) Both of the girls had a wonderful time! :)

Marissa and her best friend, Brianna.

Jenna and her best friend, Stephanie.

Wondering where the boys are?? After experiencing the dance last year, Jacob and Nicholas decided the event was way too girly! They wanted nothing to do with it and stayed home with their dad and did "guy" stuff. :)

Meeting Anthony

Marissa and Jacob were the first of my kids to meet their brand new baby cousin. They just couldn't believe how little he is! Jenna and Nicholas had their first introduction a few weeks later. The four of them are so excited to finally have a first cousin!

My Nicholas

One of my favorites of him so far this year. :)

Jacob's First Communion

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Jacob received his first Holy Communion today! He was excited and everything went great. After church, we came back to the house and had a little celebration with our family. Isn't he handsome?! He is holding the same missalette that his Dad held at his First Communion. We gave him a cross tie pin for his special day.

Jacob and his grandparents.

Great Yia Yia Pagonis.

Aunty Sarah, Tom, Papa, Uncle Jeremy, Gramma Fran, Aunty Ali, Uncle Rob, Jenna, Jacob, and Nicholas.

Proud parents!

Deacon Tim. :)

Congratulations, Jacob!

Baby Anthony!

I'm finally an aunt! It's true! My beautiful nephew, Anthony Robert Alejandro, was born today at 12:12 pm weighing 7 lbs. 14 oz. and measuring 19 3/4 inches. Congratulations Melissa and Rick! I am so excited!

Proud daddy and new mommy.

I love this photo. Melissa framed it and gave it to me as a gift. I am so blessed to have been a part of this day and so grateful that I was there to support my sister. She is going to be a wonderful mother.

I'm your Aunty!!

Grandpa and Grandma Pagonis. Great Yia Yia Pagonis. We love you, baby!

Jacob wove this special little blanket for Anthony. He worked really hard trying to get it done in time for his birth. Blue and orange for U of I, of course!

Happy Birthday Yia Yia!

My Yia Yia celebrated her 92nd birthday on March 11th! I'm so grateful to have her in my life. She's singing "Happy Birthday" to herself in this picture. :)

Happy Birthday Jenna!

Jenna celebrated another birthday on March 2nd! It's hard to believe that she's already 7. She's been looking forward to this birthday for quite sometime. Jenna has been talking about having a birthday slumber party for at least six months. She was so happy when we told her that we were a-ok with the idea and started immediately planning the whole evening. I actually was really excited about it too. It reminded me of my own slumber party days. So fun.

So, here are all the girls. Top row: Abby H., Stephanie, Abby M., Jenna, Chloe, Ava, and Lauren. Bottom row: Madeline, Brianna, Marissa, and Mallory. Eleven giggly little girls in all! They arrived at 6pm and each and every one of them were in their jammies by 6:30pm. They were all hyped up to get their sleeping bags set up, too. C'mon, it's a slumber party!

Jenna wrote many notes, letters, and lists about her upcoming slumber party. I found this picture particularly entertaining. It's a "map" of where everyone is going to sleep. So cute.

After playing for awhile, we all did a little craft. Each girl painted a suncatcher. I think they really enjoyed it. Here's Stephanie hard at work on her butterfly.

Jenna wanted a cake with a big purple flower on the top. Mission accomplished. She loved it! She really liked her sparkly green #7 candle, too.

Wondering who's at the bottom of that kid pile?? That would be Jacob!! He was the only boy in the house (Nicholas went to Joshua's for a sleepover) and when he was around he made the girls extra giggly. Thank goodness for his personal bodyguard, Madeline. She tried to protect Jacob from the madness as best she could.

Jenna loved all of her presents! She received so many fun things including Squinkies, Zoobles, Pixos, Chixos, a new soccer ball, a kitty towel, and a new doggy pillow pet!

After opening presents, the girls settled down to watch Toy Story III. Brianna and Marissa always snuggle together on the couch and this is the spot they always claim. Tonight was no different. They hung out with the big girls all night.

Jacob and Madeline were in charge of making popcorn, serving it to the girls, and keeping their bowls full at all times. It was no small task! They popped 14 bags of popcorn! All the girls had to shout out was "refill" and one of them would run over to get their bowl. It was cute. They also played Blokus with Tom.

The girls headed upstairs around 9:30pm. It took them quite some time to perfect the sleeping arrangements. Marissa and Brianna slept together in Marissa's bed, Mallory and Jenna were in her bed, and all the other girls were in sleeping bags on the floor. The plan was to "take turns" visiting Jenna in her top bunk. Ava brought her American girl doll and I cracked up when I found that she had her own little sleeping bag, too (see picture above). After everyone was settled in, we left them to slumber...not really! Tom and I got a kick out of them chatting and giggling. That's what you do at a slumber party! I checked in on them around 10:30pm. Brianna and Marissa were asleep and Mallory was ready to go to sleep. The other girls were not, so Mallory moved to the twin bed in our office. Jacob and Madeline crashed in Jacob's room each in their own bunk around 11pm and by 11:30pm everyone was asleep!

I made chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream for breakfast and the girls packed up and got ready to go. I'm pretty sure all of them took a cat nap that day to catch up on the sleep they didn't get the night before! After the girls went home, Jenna thanked us and said that it was the best birthday party that she'd ever had. I have to say that I had alot of fun myself!

Jenna now weighs 52 lbs (50%-tile) and is 50 1/2 inches tall (90%-tile). Do you notice anything different about her smile? Jenna recently lost THREE teeth in just 10 days! Her interests include Daisy Scouts, soccer, dinosaurs, doing crafts, stuffed animals, and cats. Earlier this month she was the Star of the Week at school and presented a poster all about herself to her class. It sums up our Jenna very nicely! Here is what it says:

3 Wishes: That she can have a sleepover everyday. That she can have a cat. That she can have a DS. (Turns out she just bought one with her birthday money so that wish came true!)

When I grow up: She wants to be a preschool teacher (like Miss Hollenbeck).

Things she likes: rainbows, dolphins, ice cream, sea horses, dinosaurs, bunnies, chocolate, and flowers.

Things she doesn't like: thunderstorms, lightening, wind, snakes, bumblebees, anything spooky, and sharks.

I'm so proud of you Jenna! Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Jacob celebrated his 9th birthday on March 1st! Per usual, there was no shortage of celebrating going on in our house. We had lots of fun gatherings with our friends and family to celebrate, but I think the highlight of Jacob's birthday was his sleepover birthday party. Stealing the idea from his sister, he thought it was simply a fabulous plan to have his buddies over for the evening.

Anticipating the high energy level of boys, we let him invite half of the amount of people that Jenna had at her party. And let me tell ya, what a brilliant idea that was! 5 boys = 10 girls. It came as no surprise to us that these boys came over ready to party. My hopes of them eventually falling asleep were immediately dashed the second they set foot in the house. No explanation necessary. They're boys. Here are the party animals....Jacob, Neel, Jacob W., Logan, Connor, and Dylan....oh, and Nicholas! Jacob was really nice and let his baby brother participate in all the fun. Nicholas thought he was so cool hanging with the big boys all night.

Jacob was so excited when we found this Star Wars birthday cake! It came with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker figures complete with illuminated light sabers. For those of you who don't know, Jacob has become quite the Star Wars fan. Stay tuned to the blog for an upcoming post about this new obsession of his.

After eating pizza and cake the boys played "Star Wars" and ran around battling each other with light sabers. Dylan was nice enough to bring foam balls (thank you, Dylan) to make the battle even more fun. It was entertaining to say the least. I'm still amazed at the crazy sound effects that boys can make. Girls just can't do it.

Jacob was so excited to get some new Star Wars stuff and DS games for his new Nintendo DS (which he saved up for and bought with his own money!). He loved all of his gifts and is very thankful. We gave him a scooter (his old one has seen better days) and the Stars Wars Trilogy. He's now the proud owner of all of the Star Wars movies. :)

The boys settled down to long enough to watch Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and part of Toy Story III. Here they are eating popcorn and kicking back together. We left them on their own at around 10pm and headed up to bed. Unlike the modest giggling and laughing that took place with Jenna's slumber party, it sounded like a tackle football game was taking place downstairs. I later found out that they were having sack races with their sleeping bags! They did finally crash around 2:30am after I came downstairs to find all of them all wide awake and wrestling with their shirts off, the pantry raided, every possible light we own on, and SpongeBob Squarepants on the T.V. After suggesting that they entertain the idea of sleep they reluctantly crawled into their sleeping bags and fell asleep. (By this point, Nicholas had ditched the boys for his own bed.)

Jacob still sleeps with his Froggy every night...doesn't matter who's there. The boys were all up at 6:30am the next morning and ready to eat. Jacob requested a very special treat for breakfast: Fruit Loops! My kids have never had them (don't make fun of me) so my little ones didn't even know what they were. All the fun ended around 9am when parents started coming. Jacob had a great time with his friends and was really happy with his party. :)

At his 9-year checkup we found that Jacob is now 74 lbs. and 4' 6" tall (75% for weight and height). He was not happy to find out that he still needs to be in a booster seat (he's three inches too short). It'll be at least a year or two big guy! He still loves sports and is looking forward to starting competitive baseball this spring. His recent interests include Star Wars, Mighty Beans, and his new DS. He likes school, has lots of friends, and is doing fantastic in his academics. All that said, I'm mostly so proud of the wonderful person that Jacob is growing up to be.

Happy Birthday, Jacob!