shelby's first somersault

she finally did it! she would walk her legs way up to her head and we would flip her over. today, she made it over all by herself!

and then she did it off of the kitchen step... okay, so she's not real wise about it yet.

i wasn't ready and missed the picture. check back on this post, i'm sure it will show up, soon!

bummer

we had to leave y-town today. i'm not mad at anyone, but i'm really bummed. bob needed his space back, dad's house was over-run with dogs, and karen's and nick's houses were under construction.

i'm not ready to go home! i really wanted to hang out with people this week.

stephon's happy, though. he's been home a whole 24 hours by himself and he's lonely. he misses us :)

merry christmas x3

our christmas with mom and bob was on the 26th. there was the old faithfuls that showed up such as boxers for all of the guys, nail files for everyone, and the unfortunate steeler's paraphernalia for steve. however, we missed one of our dearly beloved... the sugar wafer cookies!

shelby and elizabeth seemed to cooperate a bit more today, but shelby and karen were having words! shelby kept trying to get into karen's candy, which included lemonheads. if shelby would have waited a few minutes i'm sure bob would have snuck some sweets to her and elizabeth while no one was looking, anyway. she didn't need to risk her life with karen!

the world dairy expo played a large part in our christmas this year. many, many, many gifts came from there! we all have lots of interesting cow gifts. mom went with her friend rita and apparently snagged items from all of the vendors in sets of six!

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merry christmas x2

we had our family christmas today at mom's. i'm determined to get stephon to look forward to holidays! bribery works, i think. i got him an electronic reader that he's talked about for months. i believe that's the last we've seen of him this holiday.

nathan and shelby seemed to like their gifts. we didn't do a lot, but what they got they are having fun with. hopefully they will appreciate the time with family more than anything.

elise slept through christmas today. she's not quite ready to jump up at 5 am and run to see what santa has left her.

bob has been sneaking sweets to shelby all day. i guess a week of sugar won't kill her, but bob may end up cleaning up after a baby with an upset stomach.

we ended the day with a very competitive game of monopoly. stephon, nathan, and i engaged in real estate battle for a couple of hours. nathan was the first to bankrupt. there are some real life lessons this boy can learn here! stephon lost his rear end, too. oh yes, i was victorious! and since i'm the one writing the blog, i will let everyone know :D

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merry christmas

we spent christmas eve at dad's. stephon missed it because he was in-route to y-town. other than that, it was a lot of fun. the family has multiplied exponentially in the last couple of years, it seems. all of the babies were there!

shelby and elizabeth take turns chasing each other, and stealing the other's toys. sharing isn't real high on the skills list at this point. shelby is 23 months old, and elizabeth is 15 months.

cookies are apparently real high on the 'gotta have it' list, though! shelby kept getting into the cookies in the kitchen so we were trying to keep her out of them. i walked in just in time to see karen trying to get her out of them. shelby growled, snarled, grabbed a cookie and crammed it into her mouth! it was somewhere between really funny and very scary. karen decided not to come between her and cookies anymore. i was on my own.

gabrielle and elise are four and five weeks old. they napped and ate together, but aren't even aware of the other's existence.

nathan and bill hung out in the back room playing with the mp3 player that bill, sandy, steve, and karen got him. in some aspects, such as electronics, i guess they're about the same age ;) dad tried to go back there to play online poker with nathan, but he got in trouble with kathy and had to come back out to be sociable.

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shelby

shelby said 'sheby' several times today. we haven't heard that one yet. she doesn't seem to associate it with herself, though. if i ask her where shelby is, she doesn't do anything with that like when i tell her to go find naint or dada.

she's also learning to count to 10. we found an on demand channel that is all about teaching toddlers to count. we just started, so look for a post in the future bragging about how smart she is :)

smile !

i have found that instead of definite firsts with the kids i have days of 'i think, maybe' and then one day there's a confirmation that what i thought might be happening was! that's what happened today.

i thought elise was starting to smile a couple of days ago, but wasn't sure. could be gas, you know ;) but today i was able to make her smile a number of times in a row! i even caught pictures.

get real

today was less than the fantasy of horsepower tv and bon bons that my dad would like to believe is the life of a stay-home-mom.

today i have been spit up on, pooped on and then peed on by both of the girls. nathan has taken exponentially longer to get next to nothing done making my school teacher role much, much more difficult. all of this after getting an hour and a half of sleep last night.

i realized at 21:30 when i was finally starting dinner that i hadn't even had a chance to get out of my pajama's. oh yes, it was one of those days!

i had a moment at the end of the day, though. one of those moments that many women have when their husband caresses their cheek and tells them how much they love them and gently kisses their lips. no, stephon has not been possessed... no, those moments are very different for me. stephon looked at me with a crying baby in his hands, a toddler throwing a tantrum at his feet, an arguing teenager at the table and said to me "i don't know how you do it. i've never been dumb enough to think that your job is easy." be still my beating heart!

i can't believe i have a picture.

four generations

the girls and i followed mom and nathan to grandma french's today. nathan quizzed me with history trivia on the way there over my new walkie-talkies. i did pretty good! i didn't know i was so smart! okay, maybe i did ;)

grandma has the same toys at her house that my cousins and i played with! and let me tell you, i have some older cousins ;) it was very nostalgic to watch shelby play with them.

i do feel a bit guilty for being in medway and not stopping to see stephon's family in dayton so let me defend myself real quick because they know where my grandma lives... :) it was late when i left and the babies were asleep! i promise we will see you soon!

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and my birthday continues...

sandra and the kids came over this evening. they got here just in time to help nathan unload the groceries from the car and me to put them up after our trip to the store. they may never come back!

sandra brought me her tex-mex and chips and some cream of mushroom soup from zuppa for my birthday :) i love her tex-mex and i love zuppa's cream of mushroom soup, it's made from scratch.

nathan and bradley got to hang out, and the girls played with shelby. elise got attention from all of them. again, i felt a lot less housebound after they left.

we had a good time. and the only thing better than tex-mex and tortilla chips is tex-mex that you can double-dip in and eat the whole thing, if you can!

happy birthday to me!

it's my birthday!

i love my birthday :) i am usually pretty good about celebrating for weeks! however, elise is too little to take out to public places, nor do i think she would do well roaming around a tree farm. typically, we have a family tradition of going and cutting down a christmas tree for my birthday as well as putting up our christmas decorations and torturing stephon with christmas music :)

stephon delivered as well as he always has for my birthday! he got me electronic toys :) i got walkie-talkies for nathan and me to use if we're separated with the babies. or if he's in the florida room and i'm in the family room... looking at him through the door while we chat... whatever, it's fun! he also brought me chipotle's for dinner :)

nathan shovelled the driveway for me for my birthday! that would be really important since the driveway has a pretty decent incline to it and i have to get a running start to get the van in if it's icy.

mom left me a present when she was here that i've had to stare at for almost three weeks now. i finally got a farmall t-shirt! you have to understand that nathan has had a number of farmall t-shirts, jackets, pins, etc. for years. i've been waiting for mine forever! she also gave me a really neat western belt with real silver decorations on it. hmmm... i think i could really hurt someone with that one! thanks mom ;)

babies, babies, babies!

we finally got to meet gabrielle! we went to sandy's and bill's house for dinner. karen, steve, and elizabeth were there. kathy and nick were there. and ofcourse, sandy, bill, and gabrielle were there. there were babies everywhere!

you would think i would have taken pictures, but i didn't. i had my camera with me, but there was so much going on that i didn't even get it out.

disappointing, i know.

birthday party

terry came over today and we celebrated our birthdays :) her birthday is december 2, mine is the 6th.

she ran and brought back chipotle's... my favorite! and we made cheesecake... my favorite! okay, i'm feeling a little bad now, i did ask her what she wanted to have, but i think we ended up with all of my favorites!

it was nice to have company since i can't really take elise out just yet. i feel a lot less house-bound since she was here. we talked about taking pictures so that we could scrap our day, but then i forgot to get the camera out. i can't even play the pregnancy card any more when i forget things!

happy birthday to us!

i think i can do it!

well, i survived my first day alone with the kids! stephon went back to work today, and so did i :)

nathan got through school, the babies were clean and fed, i was dressed, dinner was made, and i even vacuumed the main living areas of the house. woo hoo! i think i can do this ;)

gabrielle lynn buckley

gabrielle lynn buckley was born on december 1, 2008 at 11:05 PM. she weighs 7 pounds and 1.5 ounces and is 20.5 inches long. mom and baby are doing great!

shelby words

these are great memories and are great for a smile :)

mama
dada
naint	nathan
eise	elise. she just started saying this.
baby
hot	this was the first concept that shelby understood. she says 'hot,' or if you say hot, she'll blow whatever it is that you are talking about. very cute :)
uh oh!	we have come to dread this utterance! this means that she has just dropped something, usually something messy it seems. you want to be frustrated, but hearing this tiny little 'uh oh' makes you smile in spite of yourself.
doe!	no! she tells the oggies no when they are barking
cap	crap. okay, this isn't a great word. we're trying to lose it. it's naint's fault.
what
he-go	here ya go!
i-gee	i'll get it!
oggy	doggy
guck	this could be duck or yuck
geegle! geegle! geegle!	tickle! tickle! tickle!
mouf	mouth. get ready because she's going to stick her finger in your mouf when she says this.
nose	she says it with a hard 's' and then she honks your nose ;)
earce	ears
hair	she plays with my hair when she says this, or pats eise on the head if she's saying it to her
ice	eyes. yes, she's about to poke you in the eyes!
ink	this is her newest word. she's always used sign language to let me know when she wants a drink.
dop	stop! naint usually hears this one when he's trying to help her or keep her from injuring herself :P

happy thanksgiving

we went to joseph and michelle's for thanksgiving today. they are stephon's step-uncle and aunt. it's funny to think of them as an aunt and an uncle because they are our age and their kids are little.

the girls were adorable in their matching fall outfits :)

i didn't see much of nathan. he was downstairs playing pool with joe-joe and brell. he also likes to talk to papa joe and uncle charles quite a bit.

shelby had a blast with the kids. cousins bri and brianna started a girl's guitar band with her and were very good at sharing toys. cousin rickea fixed her hair. and cousin joe-joe had her belly-laughing downstairs while they jumped around and fell on the floor together. it was really good for her to play with all of the kids.

i hope that it was okay for elise. everyone was really careful with her, and she didn't get handed around too much, but i definitely had new mother nerves going on. i really really hope she doesn't get sick. i don't think anyone was sick there, but you never know.

i did miss getting to play spades with the 'regulars.' jerome, joseph, michelle, and arlene like to play. it's always fun, but i missed it while chasing a toddler, or nursing an infant, or stuffing my face!

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baby in a basket

when elise was born my mother brought a doll for shelby so that she would have her own 'baby' like me. today shelby climbed into the doll's bassinet, covered up in the quilt that my mom made for the doll and held her baby ... what a cutie :)


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first doctor's appointment

elise is back up to 9 pounds already! they like for babies to get back to their birth weight by two weeks. elise is a week old and already an over-achiever!

dr. harper checked her out and said that she is perfect :)

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first osu / michigan game and playing dress-up

today was elise's first osu / michigan game! sandra provides our osu outfits for the girls :)






the dress is from my mom. shelby danced and danced all around the family room!

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coming home

it's time to go home! this has been a very scary time for me with all three babies. somehow we're supposed to be able to take care of this baby that needed a whole team of nurses up until today.

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elise marie bilberry

elise marie bilberry was born on november 17 at 8:01 AM. she weighs 9 pounds, 4.5 ounces and is 21 inches long!

silly boys, tractors are for girls!

we went to my mom's tractor pull today. she drives, and bob, my step-father, is her pit crew. she (usually) dominates a very male dominated sport :)

today she pulled the farmall super mta (pictured above). other times we have gone, she has also pulled a farmall 140(pictured on the right).

to pull a tractor actually means to pull a sled with the tractor. they hook it to a huge weighted (as in tons) sled that's as big as a semi trailer and pull it down a track. essentially, whoever gets the furthest wins.

she usually places in the top four, but she had a grand-daughter to distract her today. nathan has gone to several of them and has even pulled a couple of times in his day :) but mom doesn't usually have shelby to show off to the crowd, so she wasn't watching the track and the competition like she should have been and didn't do as well as she would have liked.

3rd trimester

it's official! i am in my 3rd trimester. if you go by the book, i have 12 weeks to go. however, dr. balaloski will schedule my c-section two weeks prior to that on november 19. happy birthday dad! although, if elise is like shelby and comes early then i have about nine weeks. boy, that's going to go quick.

in case you are interested, i am registered at babies r us. it's registry number 98182555, but you can find it by mine or stephon's name.

the wheels on the mini-van go round and round...

we traveled to youngstown today. this is our first trip in a mini-van. can you believe it, i, jo bilberry, am driving a mini-van! stephon bought me a 2008 nissan quest. it's not bad, it's black and has some style and shape to it for a mini-van. at least that's what stephon and my dad keep telling me. i think they're just trying to make me feel better.

it was a nice ride. there is a ton of space in the back for our luggage. i didn't have to sit everything on the driveway and pack it like a 3-d puzzle for a change. we just sat it all in there :) and check this out... we now don't have to ask for free home delivery when the new baby comes! there's room for all of us :)

we're staying at my dad's for the week. tomorrow we'll go to a tractor pull, sunday is my niece's (elizabeth) 1st birthday, next saturday is another tractor pull, and my aunt kay and uncle rick are visiting my mom's next sunday. so we will be heading back home next monday, the 15th. stephon didn't come with us :( he's working and taking care of the dogs.

initially you might think that he got the short end of the stick on this one. however, think of all the meals and glasses of ice water he'll be able to enjoy without little fingers in it; all the video games without pulled plugs and powered down x-boxes in the middle of them; and all of the uncensored / non-cartoon tv shows he'll be able to watch! i think he'll survive just fine without us.

Babies at the Zoo

we went to the columbus zoo again today. i wanted a second chance to get pictures of the baby colobus monkey, but i didn't grab the batteries for my camera from the charger before i left! looks like there will be another visit to the zoo this coming week.

we also visited the goats and sheep. they're neat because you go into a yard with the animals. shelby really liked the animals. nathan showed her how to brush the goats, but they got a grouchy goat. whenever they tried to brush the goat, it would head-butt nathan. it was hysterical!

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look mommy, there's an airplane up in the sky

shelby and i were playing at academy park this evening while stephon and nathan were fishing. when we were getting ready to leave, shelby noticed an airplane for the first time! she was so amazed by it. she watched it for a long time and then tried to follow it. it was really cute :)

i didn't get a picture, but here are some good pictures from academy park a couple of days ago.

how did stephon and nathan do while fishing? well, thank goodness for chipotle's!

the columbus zoo

we went to the columbus zoo today :) shelby was into everything so i thought she would like to go play with the monkeys.

it was a beautiful day! one of the colobus monkeys had a baby last month and we got to see it. it was so cute!

shelby's fun to take to the zoo now because she watches the animals. if they are active she points to them and talks about them and reacts to them. it's pretty neat. nathan does all of that, too, but somehow it lost it's cuteness over the last 15 years.

he is such a good big brother, though. he pushes her around all over the zoo in her stroller when she's not walking, and holds her hand when she is, if she'll let him. i try to have her walk as much as possible so she'll be too worn out to get into things once we get home!

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today nathan went to taekwondo and hapkido after the zoo. shelby and i met terry at cord camera to work on our scrapbooks. i have been trying to finish this one page for the last three times i scrapped! i don't know what the problem is, but i just can't get it done. today i was distracted by a lot of chaos going on in our neighborhood.

apparently there was a shooting close by and the suspect ran and was caught just down the street last night. there were tons of cops and a helicopter overhead. today stephon and the neighbor discovered that the van parked out front for three days was stolen and we had the cops here for quite awhile today. they caught two of the three kids that stephon and chuck saw, hopefully things will calm down... or there may be another shooting!

mopar nationals and hotpants

we went to the mopar nationals today for nathan's birthday. the drag races are SO cool :) somehow i have pictures of several cars, one picture of nathan, and no pictures of anyone else who was there! go figure.

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i have to tell the funniest story of the day, which had little to do with the nats. last night i washed clothes for stephon and i to wear today. i got a bit behind over the last week or so, and one of the things i washed was stephon's underwear because he would have been out of them today. i was really tired so i figured i could just dry the load of clothes this morning before we had to leave. we woke up to no electricity!

while i accept responsibility for slacking on my laundry duties this last week, what happened next was not my idea. stephon thought he could dry his underwear on a pizza pan on top of the stove! he brought them in to me with a look on his face like he was going to choke me. he had caught his underwear on fire!

oh yes, he still wore them with two burn holes in them!

my new pet-name for stephon is hotpants :)

the grocery game

if you get a chance, check out the grocery game. i have been saving a ton of money on my groceries. tonight i saved 44% off of my grocery bill :)

inniswood metro gardens

shelby and i went for a walk at the park today. i did try to keep her out of the roses. well, i kept her out most of the time, but she looked so pretty running around in them!

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i started re-organizing nathan's room today. i gave him three days notice before he left, so whatever is not done has been left to my discretion!

july pictures

july 1	nathan and shelby in the secret garden at inniswood metro gardens
july 2	nathan is mowing the lawn these days
july 4	4th of july
july 6	stephon and shelby riding the tram and playing at sharon woods park
july 8	nathan and shelby at an energy program at inniswood metro gardens
july 20	westerflora tour
july 23	nathan and shelby at a caterpillar program and the playground at sharon woods park
july 26	nathan is buried for his birthday

shelby loves music

today i finally replaced the batteries in her music chair and turned it on for her. i handed her a book and she sat in the chair tapping her toes together with the music for quite awhile. quite awhile for a toddler is about 15 minutes, but hey... do you know what i can get done in 15 minutes!

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a visit from mom... and peanut butter

we did great on the garage sale! i was trashed and uncomfortable afterward, sick yesterday, but am feeling better today.

mom and nathan came home yesterday from the family reunion and spent the night before going to the ohio state fair today. they hung out awhile this morning to play with shelby. i'd like to believe they missed me just a little, too :)

nathan called from the fair. they saw the budweiser horses getting hooked up to the big wagon. they also competed in a nascar simulation. nathan came in 2nd and mom came in 6th. finally, they saw toby mac in concert! i spoke to nathan after the concert, boy was he excited :)

shelby and i hung out at home. we had peanut butter crackers for a snack... i couldn't believe she could get that much peanut butter on her. it was in her hair, her hands were covered, on her face and on her eye lashes. she went from the high chair to the bath.

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garage sale day one

we did very well today :) we had a nice steady flow of customers for our garage sale today. it was hot, but we stayed reasonably comfortable in the garage with the fan running.

nathan and aaron did great with shelby today. i always talk about how great nathan is with her, but aaron was absolutely wonderful today! he played catch with her, played with her on her new sit-and-spin that my mom brought her today, and even kept her out of the street for me. he's going to be a favorite uncle someday and an ornery dad, too ... whether he likes it or not, he is so much like his father!

nathan left me today :( it was great to see my mom for a little bit, but then they left. they are off too have a fun little vacation until next weekend. after i got home, gave shelby a bath, and put her to bed i was all alone! have i mentioned before that i think my babies should be home in their beds by evening.

i got to pick up terry's daughter, brittney, from her very first day of work. i felt important :)

man, i think the heat got to me today. i feel really sick this evening. don't tell my mom.

storage room day

today is storage room day. nathan has been hanging out with shelby while i continue working downstairs. i don't usually have nathan babysit for me (except maybe while she's napping), but i am working with a deadline this time. it's looking pretty good! there is a purpose to all of this hard work. terry and i are having a garage sale tomorrow and saturday.

separation anxiety

i made arrangements with my mom and my dad today for nathan to be gone for a week. he'll start out with mom in dayton on friday, work his way through kentucky, the ohio state fair, warren, and then end up in youngstown where he will leave to come back to columbus the following sunday for the mopar nationals with dad.

my friend sandra thinks i should be looking forward to the day when i can send all three kids away with mom, but i've never been that way. i think that they should be at home in their beds at night where i know they are safe. not gallivanting all over creation with grandparents, working outdoors, going to fairs, visiting family, and whatever other healthy things they do with them ;P

i am going to take advantage of him being gone, though. for one thing, i'm going to reorganize his room! he's a bit of a pack rat. he won't miss a thing.

i got a lot done in the storage room today! yeah for me :) when i was tired of working i took a load of garage sale items to terry's, had cheesecake, and visited with her and her kids. they are a fun crowd over there.

and then i tried to grill ribs... it all goes downhill from here. i baked them for too long, but didn't realize it. it doesn't really matter because i caught them on fire on the grill! oh yes, they were black. we had arby's for dinner.

inniswood metro gardens geology program and scrapbooking

we went to inniswood park today for a program on geology. the instructor is very animated and makes the class fun. nathan played one of the games and chose some jewelry as his prize for shelby. it was very sweet of him, but i did have to warn him about starting that trend! i told him that the jewelry will only get more and more expensive as she gets older.

nathan had his tae kwon do and hapkido classes this evening. he is in class for almost three hours on tuesday and thursday evenings. i used to go and watch, but the more mobile that shelby became, the more i was just chasing her off of the practice floor. now on tuesday evenings i scrapbook at cord camera with my friend terry. shelby hangs out in her stroller and plays, reads, and eats.

nathan's birthday

today's nathan's birthday! he's 15, can you believe it! today was a low-key birthday, but it's just one of several days that he's celebrating on.

this last weekend he celebrated with his dad at mona's house (mona is parish's cousin). they had a cookout and cake and lots of family around. he brought some cake and some chips and home-made salsa home, both were really good! yesterday he and parish met us at the park and showed off his new remote controlled airplane... for about two minutes. that two minutes included the take off, a few circles around the basketball court, and the crash. he was frustrated, but i have to tell you that it was pretty funny to watch.

today he didn't have to do any chores and has been playing unreal tournament 3 with stephon all day. i cooked dinner for him from a recipe of his choice. it was a roast beef sandwich with goat cheese spread. it was okay. now, the cheesecake... that was good! parish brought him a gift from his girlfriend, stephanie. she sent him a cool pair of shoes and a marvel comics t-shirt that we're all jealous of. that was really nice of her.

later this week my mom will be here to celebrate with him, and then on august 10 my dad will be here to celebrate with him at the mopar nationals. it's like i said, today was just one of several days to celebrate :)

the day started out with shelby getting into nathan's birthday cake. stephon and i were talking in the other room and noticed that shelby was really quiet. have you heard the saying that 30 seconds of quiet is bliss and 31 is shear terror? if you have kids, you know exactly what that means! she ate some of his icing and had it all over her face and hands. it was pretty funny :)

shelby had a doctor's appointment today. dr. harper said that she is perfect and so smart and absolutely beautiful :) she takes all of that after me. she also had one immunization shot today. she didn't even cry. she's a tough little girl, which she also takes from me. next time she gets into trouble, i will let you know what she takes from stephon.