Chandler Day of Play

SO I mentioned in a previous post that my city, Chandler, has been named in the top 100 cities IN THE COUNTRY for children/youth for the 3rd year straight. Every year they have a cute event named Chandler Day of Play. We went last year when Ryen was like 2 week old and Uncle Greg came with us! This Day of Play seems to have bad luck cause it is always SO freaking HOT on the days they have it. Anyhow it was a great way to get out of the house and have some fun this morning (after going out to breakfast that it is!) Now it is time to shower and then off to the first of THREE birthday celebrations I have today/tonight! Pheww! Enjoy these cute photos!

SuperMom has been SUPER-stressed

OK so anyone who has been reading my Facebook posts lately has seen that I have been stressed lately. The kids have been real hard! Actually Ella has been OK but Ryen is the one giving me such a hard time. My angel... uggh... I wont repeat here all the trouble she has been giving me cause those of you that are close to me already know.

Anyhow tonight at dinner I was playing peek-a-boo pizza with Ryen and low and behold she gives me a toothy grin and I see 8... yes EIGHT... teeth in her mouth. Last week she had 4.5 teeth. Whoops! LOL. I mean I knew she was teething but those dang teeth are so hard to see until they pop through. I thought she was getting one or two... not 4 at once! I was also getting so frustrated with her that she started this screaming crying crap when she wants something. It has been annoying to say the least. She screamed and cried for like 5 minutes straight in the car cause she wanted Ella's juice box. But I had an epiphany today. This baby girl is not screaming and crying to be a brat or to throw a tantrum. She is SO frustrated by her lack of ability to communicate with me about what she wants. So I will just be patient and help her communicate and love on her a little bit more than I have been, if that is even possible ...sigh.

I got so behind on my blogging of photos so I am not even going to care about it anymore. I am just going to post some of my favorites from this point on and take all that pressure off myself! Yeah! So enjoy these random shots of my beauties. I promise to stay more up to date on sharing photos. =)

Happy 1st Birthday Ryen Lorissa!

My baby girl is ONE in 30 minutes. I cant stand it! Where did the time go? Where did my baby go? Why does it seem like it flew by and was so easy? And I hate that she is no longer considered a baby or infant but has officially entered toddlerhood. She is still a little baby to me! I have to tell you, my FAVORITE time is from when they turn 1 till they start their terrible 2's. So I am embracing my new walking, talking, funny, playful, giggling, beautiful little baby girl! Happy Birthday my princess, my baby, my beautiful angel, my love, my world, my Ry Bunny.

Here are some photos of her birthday party we had with our friends this week. We had 27 children all under the age of 3 at my home for this party, and though it was chaotic, the kids were INCREDIBLE. We had very few fights and problems with all those kids together. Just a tribute to how well they are all getting to know each other and how close these kids are becoming...

Enjoy the photos! Birthday #2 is tomorrow with family and some more friends.

MIA

Hello all! Sorry I have been MIA lately. I have been so busy working on JCarilli Designs that I have been slacking on photo editing, and blogging. I just wanted to drop a quick note to say that I have an update to come. I have photos to share of the kids and videos and so many changes to share that Ryen is going through. Speaking of Ryen, my baby is going to be ONE in less than 2 weeks. Eeek!!

My sister Lori and I have for the last month been getting together once a week for play time and dinner. We go to her house every Thursday and we CHERISH this time with her and Livvie. Even though Ryen gets into EVERYTHING... the dogs bowl/water and even though Lori's house is not baby proof (AT ALL) we manage to have a good time! Here are some photos of the three kiddos!


But we have also been having so much time with Ella in school and a RIDICULOUS amount of our friends have Fall BABIES! So we literally have a birthday party every weekend from Sept 18th through Nov 7th!!! Holy cow! But we are having fun!

And I also have my fantasy football season taking up a chunk of my time as well. But I PROMISE to get some photos up soon. I just updated Ella's blog at www.elladalynn.blogspot.com

Love you all!
Jill

PS- I am so grateful to my friends for all their support of JCarilli Designs and all their encouragement and the referral business they have been sending my way. It is so nice to see Mommas and Women (and even some of my MALE friends) supporting each other. =)

Falling in Love with FALL!

I seriously have never ever in almost 32 years on this Earth been more excited for FALL then I am right now. I am so done with Summer and ready for the cooler weather. If it weren't for the Christmas Season I would easily say that Fall is my favorite Season. But I have to go with Winter as #1 because of all the cool Holiday events and parties and music and excitement and wonder that come along with it.I am walking in stores and just see FALL everywhere I look. The stores already have fall wreaths and scarecrows and EEK Halloween Costumes! I cant believe it! Maybe also it is because my two babies are both Fall babies and we have that to look forward to also. When the cooler weather hits we basically spend every night at the park after dinner with our friends. It is great! We really look forward to that time and to catching up with friends that we don't get to see so much while we are all couped up indoors. I cant wait for Ella to ride her bike more and for Ryen to play in the sand. Just everything! I cant WAIT for Halloween. Ryen is going to be a cute little bumble bee and Ella is going to be allowed to pick her own. I cant wait for our neighborhood Halloween party and FOOTBALL season is starting in a week or so! Oh MY GOSH! Lazy Sundays watching Football and anxiously staring at my fantasy football scoreboard, hoping I can repeat my championship victory of last year.

The only thing missing is the changing of the leaves which strangely for us happens in like January when it gets cool enough for them to turn a little color and fall off the trees. We never get the vibrant fall colors of the East Coast, but then again we never get the freezing temps that keep us bone chilling cold and indoors from Nov to March either. Everything is a trade off I suppose.

We have had a GREAT Summer of swimming and splashpads and vacations, but are ready to begin a new season. Hence I felt the need to change my blog, in the hopes maybe Fall will arrive a little faster! Hee Hee!

Where to start...?

I know it has been a couple weeks since I blogged. Not to mention I was off Facebook for like 3 days too and so my friends were worried. Ha Ha. So what has got me so busy that I don't have time for blogging or Facebooking? Hmmm... well other than the obvious 2 kids 2 dogs and the 2 H's (House and Hubby) that I have to take care of, SO much has been going on here.

Jill: had all four wisdom teeth out which was way more mental anguish and pain than physical pain. Now that they are out, it was really no big deal. I had a Mom's Night Out with friends for Margaritas and lots of tears at the movie The Time Traveler's Wife (loved it). My favorite part of the night both involved my bestie Brooke. She had the sexiest LEGS I had EVER seen in her little short shorts and as a Mommy of two she deserved HUGE props for that. And second she leaned over to ask me "How Amazing Was Vegas?" but it came out so sloppy and slurry that I cracked up laughing. She was immediately like I am not slurring and we all thought she was so dang cute. That one Margarita really did her in! LOL Just Kidding Brookie- you know I LOVE YOU! Photos below:



Jimmy: has been golfing and hanging with his buds and just found out his evil boss that has been holding him back from any promotions at Wells Fargo has been replaced. So we are hopeful and excited for his replacement.

Ella: started school and she loves it. (Which I wont get into here because you can read all about it at her school blog here ). She also starts dance classes on Sept 2nd. We went out and bought her a little pink leotard and black ballet slippers. Its funny cuz neither school nor dance class was our idea. We waited for Ella to come to us to ask for both. She started asking for school when Ryen was born and we told her she had to wait till August (a long time) and she asked and asked and asked over that 10 months! Photos below:



Ella also is SO into learning about money! Hilarious right? She loves getting coins it is like her favorite thing ever. At least it was till Aunt Kim and Aunt Gerry bought her her own PIGGY BANK! She adores it. Everyday she asks me for money to put in it (thanks Ladies! LOL) Here is a photo of her and piggy bank.



Ryen: there is so much going on! She has started WALKING! Ok well maybe that is an overstatement. She walks in the pool about 5-6 steps before she collapses with triumph in my arms. So maybe I should say she started stepping! Hee Hee. But the other day Ryen took 4-5 steps on land. She has been taking 2-3 steps at a time unassisted and then drops like a stone. But I know she just has to get confidence. She pulls up to standing almost every second and keeps surfing along the furniture. I just know I will turn around and see her let go of the sofa and walk across the room before I know it! Stay tuned! Ryen is also getting FEISTY! Oh boy so many changes in her in the last month. She shakes her head no which is hilarious because she shakes her whole body while doing it. She also dances when she plays with the radio on her playhouse. These things are hard to get on video but I was able to sort of catch them in short increments and have created a montage below (the first video is real blurry cuz it was done on a cell phone):

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

What else is going on here? We have been spending our Wednesdays with our BFFs as usual, and having way too much fun. I have many photos to share of these days but will do so later in the week with a different post. Here are two teaser photos however:



Also birthday party planning and preparations are underway. Ryen's invites are going to go out this week and Ella's party planning is around the corner. Geesh time is flying. Ryen's birthday party is 5 weeks away. I CAN'T believe my baby is going to be ONE! This whole year went so fast. And I feel like it was way easier than I thought it would be. I know there are times when the sleep deprivation gets to me. Example? The lady I see everyday at Circle K asked me if I was OK and told me to try to remember that although it is hard having two so close together in age and to be so tired all the time, that it goes by TOO fast and to try to enjoy as much as I can. This was all it took to get me into tears while I was pouring my super caffeinated coffee at 5:45am. LOL. She even came over and put her arm around me and gave me a squeeze. Nice lady! sigh but she is right, it is all worth it. Just look at how I found my babies the other morning. Ella had dragged something over to Ryen's crib and climbed in and starting helping feed her a bottle. So cute...



I also had two parties to prepare for last week BOTH on Saturday at my home. I had a baby shower in the afternoon for my friend Jessie who is having her second baby (a girl named Elizabeth Grace) on Sept 24th (woo hoo). So we had friends over to shower her with gifts and love for her latest addition. It was great. Then half of my guests pretended to leave only to come back 40 minutes later and surprise my co-hostess Adrianna with a going away party cuz she is going away on 9/1 for a few months. And because she is the best ever and we LOVE her to death and will miss her, although we know we will see every 4-6 hopefully till she comes back to us for good. Here are some of my favorite photos from both parties (the rest are on facebook so take a look ladies):




And as if that was not enough, I am trying to start my own business. I have been looking for something to keep me busy at home and always loved doing graphic design and photo editing on my computer. It lets me be creative and I have fun doing it. I have also enjoyed hand crafting invitations for showers, birthday parties before. So I thought I would try to make a small business of it. I am hopefully going to be taking some graphic design classes soon while I am home with the kids. For now, I am able to post some of my work and designs on facebook and craigslist etc, but I also opened an online shop at Etsy.com. which is great website for anything hand-made. Here is my store (work in progress). I am trying to find time to design products that I think people might be interested in and that might show off a little of what I can do. I am looking forward to getting better and more creative through this and seeing what can become of it. Even if it is just a fun hobby for me, I enjoy it. But trying to find the time to design and get a business off the ground with everything else going on is crazy hard and not helping the sleep deprivation! Here are a few of my favorite designs:




I have lots of cute photos of the girls but too many to post on the blog. So I will be updating babysites this week (www.babysites.com/sites/carilli). But I have to find time to get to that too! Geesh!