Dynamite.

The kids new favorite song. This is my life. Enjoy.

The "IT GIFT" 2009

Forget whatever expensive trendy piece of junk parents are standing in line for this holiday season. Parents ~ if you have toddlers, buy yourself a chandelier. When your chandelier arrives, take it out of its giant box and ruin your husbands day by making him hang it. Put earmuffs on the kids to muffle the curse words. Then, give your children the box and paper and be the Christmas Winner. You could not possibly procure a cooler gift. It is loud, it is BIG it is messy~ you can get in it, under it, on top of it, you can flip it, shred it, hide underneath it. A giant box filled with crinkly loud plain brown paper is officially this seasons "IT GIFT" at the Mangan household. Serendipitous, indeed.

A glimpse of Jules at 20 months

Please excuse the brief bit of toddler nudity at the beginning of this ~ the joys of a private blog are just beginning to dawn on me!

This was Julia this weekend while Nate was painting the front hall. My little chatterbox, winking at the camera. We might be in big trouble in another 12 years or so.

Sorry about the craptastic quality, I am likely the only person in America who does not know how to download from my fancy wonderful picture quality video camera onto my computer, so the little handheld flip jobbie fills in in a pinch.

Tomorrow is December! I have spent todays rainy grey naptime cyber shopping, cooking up a giant vat of soup, and listening to Christmas music. Life is good.

Video, for a change.

This is what feeding little vultures on the beach is like. Chaos.




Leaving Luke alone with his Dad, Grandfather, and Uncle results in Luke playing with fire. Literally.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

My baby turns one tomorrow. I can't believe it. Much more on Julia soon, but as tomorrow is going to be a busy day I wanted to get this up today. A year ago I went to bed pregnant, and woke up in active labor. We had waited almost 40 weeks to meet this child ....wondering if I was carrying another son or our first daughter, and after a fantastic labor and delivery we were shocked and thrilled to welcome sweet Julia Elise into the world, and into our hearts. It has been a wonderful year, we could not imagine our lives, or our family, without you, sweet girl. Thank you for all of the joy and all of the smiles. We love you so much and can't wait to celebrate your birthday with the whole family on Sunday.


My Montage 3/16/09


Here is a recap of your first year on Earth. This song is special to me and my Dad, and I hope that one day it is just as special to you and your Dad. Happy birthday, baby Jules.

To start your day off right.

We just watched this with the kids about 5 times in a row.

If you can watch this without laughing out loud there may be something wrong with your soul ;)

Enjoy.

Julia turned 11 months old yesterday and has her big ENT appointment this morning.

Birthday Eve

Luke turns two tomorrow. Two years ago I was waiting and wondering when the baby I had been carrying for some 39+ weeks was going to make an appearance, and just who that little one was. I went to bed tonight, and woke up to my water breaking around 3 am.

Sap that I am, I put this together the other day. Its long. If you aren't related to Luke you probably won't make it through it (and even if you are, you might find it an annoyingly long 7 minutes, I know full well that no one elses kids are as interesting as your own ;).

Just looking through our past two years of memories brought me incredible joy.

Link to Video

So my brother and sister in law are thrilled to be pregnant with their first little baby. We are blessed with 5 adorable nephews and one niece on Nate's side, but this will be the first baby born to one of my siblings. Baby D is due to arrive just in time to celebrate Christmas with us all. We can't wait to meet Luke and Julia's cousin! Luke is rooting for a boy, and Jules for a girl. Either way, we are simply so excited to welcome a new member into the family.

I have never been able to post video of my kids on my blog, because the one night that I tried to figure out how to download from my video camera to my computer ended with a couple of frustrated beyond belief right hooks and a kick to the PC. I may have mentioned before that patience is not one of my strong suits. Frustration isn't either. Oh well. Nate tells me "its easy", so I will let Nate figure it out for me one day soon :).

Anyway, here is a link to the really cute video that Lex made of our time at the beach last week. Its also a link to her adorable blog if you want to track her pregnancy as we all count down to the arrival of their little one.

www.dilullodaily.blogspot.com

Thanks Lex!