Right now, sharing is a big initiative for the Janney children. Daisy has it down, to a point; Caleb, not so much. Of course Daisy is the big sister, the head honcho in the realm of siblings, and understands 95% of what we say to her, so it's a bit easier to explain to her why it's Caleb's turn to play with mommy's one shoe (the one I can't find a match to now, thanks to my off spring). Caleb is a bit more direct and defiant. Should he have something on hand that his sister, or heck even his dad for that matter, would like, his immediate response is, "No. Mine."

For example, the other night, we took our beautiful, sweet, loving children to Target. They like to go and look at the toys, plus Paul always buys them ice cream from the snack shop. Normally, Caleb will "allow" me to assist him with his ice cream by holding the cup and giving him spoonfuls that he will put into his own mouth. He was having NONE of that, thank you very much. I managed to keep a hand under the cup, so we wouldn't lose it on the floor or in the cart, but Caleb was not open to any other assistance. He kept saying, "Mine," and not in a friendly tone.

Well, we're wandering around Target, Daisy on foot and Caleb sitting in the cart, both children scarfing down chocolate ice cream like there's no tomorrow and enjoying a multitude of toys and other distractions. I decided to hand Caleb a small, plastic dog ("doggie," he said) to play with for a bit, thinking that surely he would lose interest in it quickly as he usually does with most toys when we shop. However, when Paul attempted to put the "doggie" back (and clean all the chocolate ice cream off Caleb's face) Caleb quite loudly and quickly said, "NO!MINE!" and jerked the toy away from his dad.

Paul looked at me, I looked at him, and we both lost it. Okay, so I know that Parenting 101 says you should never laugh at a behavior you want to discourage, but man oh man, it was hysterical. Big dad Paul getting the smack down from his own son - it was just too much.

Eventually we were able to put the doggie back (I believe I left it in the shampoo aisle, sorry Target employees) and check out. Of course, by that time Daisy had found a book she wanted, and for some reason neither one of us made the connection that only Daisy had a new "something or other" from the store until we got in the car and the screaming began.
Who knew a little boy could scream so loud?

Daisy, being queen big sister, handed the book over to her screaming banshee of a brother (after I offered her free computer time in dad's office) and all was well. When we got home, Daisy ran off to her computer and Caleb sat with his sister's book for the rest of the evening, like it was some great prize. He won the battle, but the war goes on.

Caleb enjoying a pre-lunch snack of crackers a few weeks ago.

That was the first word out of Caleb's mouth on Christmas morning as he raced into the living room and saw the pile of presents under his arch nemesis, the Christmas tree. In fact there were three of them, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Daisy followed suit, but was much more focused as she looked at the packages, discerning which might belong to her... I think she decided they all did.

Luckily, Santa had left two, gigantic coloring books unwrapped under the tree, so the children immediately zeroed in on them while mom and dad got their bearings and tried to get organized. The build up was just about over, weeks and weeks of Daisy talking about Santa, his sleigh, toys and presents and Caleb pulling on as many branches of the tree as he could manage. How many times did he try to unscrew the lights or pull off ornaments? Countless.

Finally, it was time to unwrap. And upwrap they did! Well, Daisy did at least, Caleb was more interested in playing with the goodies inside of the boxes than tearing apart the pretty paper. Lots of Thomas and Elmo under our tree, Santa was good to the kids this year - they must have been nicer than we first suspected.

After all of the presents were unwrapped and played with sufficiently, we headed over to Papa and Nonnie's house for breakfast and MORE presents! Plus, the fabulous Aunt Jenna was in town visiting from New York City, so the entire family could be together. More presents, more unwrapping... there were even donuts and scrambled eggs thanks to Papa.

That evening, we all went back to Nonnie's house for Christmas dinner and Great Grandpa Gene and Great Grandma Fran joined us as well. When we got home, the kiddos were happy to play with their new toys and Paul and I both agreed that it had definitely been a whoa kind of Christmas.

Here's wishing you all a peaceful and happy New Year! See you in 2009...
-Sam :)

Of course up next is one of our all-time favorite holidays - Halloween! As anyone who knows us can attest to, Halloween is a major fun-filled event around these parts. This year, the kiddos will be decked out head-to-toe in their favorite garb. Daisy is going as a witch and Caleb is a dinosaur. We promise many pics to come so stay tuned.

outta here!

Daisy and Paul were playing baseball in the house... yes, in the house. I can just see the other mothers and grandmothers who read this blog cringing, however, Paul is really good about how they play and so far nothing has been broken or destroyed. Daisy, in her Colorado Rockies ball cap and purple Barbie nightgown with wispy "wings" around her waist, would throw the ball to Paul (left-handed no less!), then "run the bases," slide into home and chirp up, "I'm a ballerina!"

While they were playing ball, Caleb was finishing up his breakfast of a biscuit, eggs, pancakes and apple juice by spitting the apple juice out and making raspberries in the process. I decided they both needed a bath (especially Caleb) and started running the water with bubbles, thank you very much. I said, "Daisy, you want a bath?" And she said, "no, I play baseball."

Well, Caleb was getting in either way (the boy was rank). Luckily Paul convinced her to take a bath by telling her that all baseball players take baths.

After a good scrub down, she and Caleb were both soaking in the large, jacuzzi tub that is supposed to be mine (that's another story) and playing with the toys that we have seen fit to dump in with them. One of these said toys was a plastic shark. Daisy was helping the shark swim around the tub and it was at this point that Caleb decided to stand up. No sooner had he stood up than Daisy sort of stuck the shark into his hind quarters. He hardly noticed but I found myself saying, "Daisy, please don't put the shark up your brother's butt."

If you had told me years ago that I would ever say anything about a shark being up someone's butt...

These are truly the moments that make you realize that kids rule. :)

I hope the world is treating you well dear reader, and thanks as always for checking in with the Janney's!
-Sam

- Everyone is healthy and growing, blah, blah, blah

- Daisy started preschool today. Yes, started preschool.

- Caleb weighs almost as much as Daisy and he is walking. Nuts

- Sam is doing a bang up job in her marketing/communication/advocate role as part of the Governor's Planning Council for Developmental Disabilities. Yes, we are all hoping they get a decent acronym someday!

- Sam and I will be visiting Wisconsin in the next few weeks. Watch out!

- I'm still doing the remote thing for PayPal

- Last, but not least, Halloween is right around the corner! Yeah!

whew. now that was a quick round-up for sure ;)

Hey, this is Wyoming - there are people in the family who own ponies ya' know. Of course Paul is allergic to horses and most likely, his eyes would swell shut and he wouldn't be able to breathe if we have a pony, but aren't you supposed to make sacrifices for your children? ;)

We are inviting close to 50 people... thank goodness this bash will be held mostly outdoors. In addition, we've planned a small party each day for the Janney kids so they each will still get their own special day. I can't wait to see Caleb devour his first birthday cake. Daisy wasn't crazy about her first cake, we had to sort of encourage her to get in there and play... I think Caleb will be ready to rock and roll.

I can't believe how fast time flies.

Last night, I was laying with Daisy watching Elmo (how I have grown to dislike that furry, red muppet) and I started thinking about everything she went through in the beginning. As she sat and laughed with Elmo about sharing bananas with Dorothy the fish (apparently bananas are a large portion of a gold fishes' diet) I remembered back to that tiny, little baby in her isolette wearing "scuba gear," aka cpap. I thought about how she used to softly yawn, her big eyeballs in that sweet face and the day we finally brought her home, sitting on our couch in the living room and thinking, "holy crap, now what?"

What an AMAZING little girl we have, ladies and gentleman. Breath taking, spectacular and literally death-defying.

Just as I was tearing up a little thinking back, Daisy looked at me and belched. Not burped, belched. She had been sucking down a HUGE glass of "appa juice" through a straw and apparently she sucked down a bunch of air as well.

Life is funny like that I guess. Just when you're ready to cry about the hard stuff, your three year old belches in your face and you realize, it's all good.

Caleb is equally amazing and stupendous - I love my big boy. He's SO funny and sweet and honestly, everything you could want in a little boy. When I think about his beginning I am equally as moved, remembering how much he and I went through while he was in my belly. The endless stress tests, the bed rest, the blood work, that stinkin' orange jug, the heart burn, the vomiting, the swelling and the endless prayers said that please God, he not come early.

I think back and I smile because you know what, it's all worth it. Every last bit of it... worth it. Of course if you had asked me if it was worth it while I was throwing up every morning and I was crazy and pregnant I most likely would have kicked you, but really, it is.

I wasn't sure where this blog was going to go today - I am feeling very reflective and mushy as my childrens' birthdays come closer and my own birthday comes to pass next week. I'm going to be 35!!! Wow, when I was little I thought 30 seemed SOOOOOOOOOOOOO old.

Thanks for checking in with the Janney's!
-Sam

Lately though, I've pointed my eBay and Google searches at something a little different and that is using our family surname as my keyword - Janney. It's pretty incredible what I've discovered and eventually purchased over the last few months as shown below.

Pictured above are the following items from left-to-right: 1950 Easter merchandise circular from Janney, Semple, Hill and Co., of Minneapolis, MN., a Kenmore Tea box from Janney Coffee Co., of Fredericksburg, Va., 5lb and 2.5lb Janney's Pure Candy boxes courtesy of Janney-Marshall Co., of Fredericksburg, VA and the largest piece, a two-sided Janney Best Paints metal sign that could have been hung outside of a paint store.

The only company I've found much info on so far is Janney, Semple, Hill and Co., which was founded in 1866 as a wholesale hardware company out of Minneapolis, MN. Check out this 1910 office photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society. Finding items from this company are pretty common as they were akin to a Sears, Roebuck and Co., and published numerous catalogs. The one item I'm still keeping an eye out for, and should have snagged when I had the chance on eBay, is the hard-to-find 1953 Janney, Semple, Hill Tonka toy truck. If you see one, please let me know! I'd probably even pay a finder's fee at this point.

Collecting Janney related ephemera and general advertising vehicles has been not only more interesting then my funny books or Halloween items, but also considerably cheaper. I'm guessing there's not much competition out there. Hope you enjoyed the items as much as we have and I'll attempt to share more as pieces are added to the collection. :)

One of the more interesting data points captured is referrers. This little detail even let's me know who is "hot linking" to images on our site. Basically, what other sites are using images directly from Janney Family. Keeping that concept in mind, I thought I'd share three web sites where photos of our Daisy have appeared...note: anything goes on the links below so be prepared (aka view these at home and not at work and no porn - I promise :)

1. Trail Riders web forum (scroll down to see the pic of Dilly)

2. UMG League Forum (scroll down)

3. Zedge forums - Nike vs. Adidas (scroll down - my personal fav)

There are definitely a few others, but I haven't been able to track down the exact page. Or, maybe the pages simply don't exist anymore. *shrug*

Either way I thought people would be interested in seeing this little slice of insight into how online images get used (or abused) depending on your viewpoint.

Everything keeps right on trucking.

Caleb continues to eat and grow and eat and grow and then eat some more. We're all going to end up with bad backs if he doesn't learn to walk soon - he has his nine-month-check-up this Tuesday, and my guess is that he'll weigh in around 25 lbs at least. Crawling will be upon us any day and honestly, I can see him walking soon after that if he maintains this mega growth and development.

Daisy. Wow. She is something else. Currently, her favorite make-believe game is to line up her little people (Grover, a farmer, Elmo, a pirate) on a tv tray, then knock them all off with a larger toy. As they little people fall they go, "Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Now, Paul and I aren't quite sure why Daisy feels the need to terrorize her little people, but I can say that she always picks them up and says, "okay, it's okay." So even though she tosses them to their demise, she picks them up and dusts them off after.

Paul seems to really be doing well with Paypal - he is our traveler. He braved a flight into Cheyenne during an extremely windy and nasty storm this time around; I know when he says it was scary that it was just that, scary. Luckily, he made it home safe and sound - although his carry-on waited a day to show up.

My job is great, I truly love what I'm doing. There is so much to learn, so much to know. So much to be done. Every day brings something new, which is great.

Thanks as always for checking in with the Janneys.
--S

Mr. Easter Bunny and I decided to hide plastic eggs filled with goodies this year instead of the real deal - I can just see myself finding a missing egg six months from now... yeeesh.

Easter morning Daisy spotted one plastic egg right away, but didn't seem to think anything of it. Then her dad started telling her to keep looking - she would squeal with delight every time she found an egg. Said egg would then make its way to a pile of other "found eggs." Once she and her daddy were done hunting, she proceeded to break into the eggs, scarfing down all the chocolate goodies inside.

Caleb wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but he was pretty sure he didn't like his sister stealing from his basket...

Afterward, we all got cleaned up and went to church with Nana. Caleb got out of it this year, but like his dad said, "Enjoy it buddy, this is your one get-outta-church free card." Well, during mass, Nana noticed that there weren't enough folks to handle communion, so she hopped up to help out. DAISY FREAKED. Started crying, screaming, "Nana, nana, nana..."

I tried to make my way through all of the other good Catholics with my screaming two year old, some moved, some got moved. Eventually we made it outside where Daisy and I spent the rest of mass sitting in the truck reading a library book.

Finally, last night we had a big turkey dinner - I actually made a pretty awesome bird if I do say so myself. Of course Daisy preferred to eat gold fish and chocolate (we'll be lucky if she ever poops again) but at least Paul and Caleb enjoyed it. Bbass loved the sweet taters and seemed to enjoy the mashed taters although the texture was a bit strange.

All in all, it was a bunny-rific Easter!

I hope you and yours had just as much fun... minus the screaming in the midst of people visiting God.

Thanks as always for checking in with the Janneys!
-Sam