McRuff Visits James' Class

McRuff visited James' school and Jacob got to be there too!

My Sweet Baby James

I overheard James talking in his baby talk voice to Jaelyn last night... "Are you going to have a baby when you grow up and get a fat belly like mommy?"

Jaely sits in her high chair!

Jaely sits in her high chair and waits for her rice cereal! 5 months, 3 1/2 weeks old.

James Learns to Snorkel!

Despite being 10 minutes late to swim, James learned to snorkel and Jacob moved up from the Jellyfish level to the Octopus level! Thanks Hubbard!

Jaely's First Pair of Shades

Jaely's First Pair of Shades

Busy Busy First Half of April in the J Pelham Family House

I can't keep up with our lives these days! To start April off, the Easter Bunny visited our house. Although, he brought not a single ounce of candy or chocolate so the boys took 45 minutes to realize that he did in fact visit us. James said the reason there was no candy was, "I was naughty a little bit. Like bad words and stuff." I am assuming he meant "bad words" like "stupid and shut-up". Hopefully.

For Jaelyn he brought a little Carter's Elephant blanket and a book.

The boys received Kites, scratch tickets, $4 each (instead of the candy), some coloring pages, a book, and a bible.



Jaelyn dressed up in her first Easter dress that I went searching for the day before.


We colored Easter Eggs and then hid them around the house. First we hid them for the boys and then they hid them for us. If you want to know where the kids hid them for us, just ask Jacob, he give great clues like, "Look under the blanket." :)

The day after Easter Jacob turned 4 years old! He colored a picture of what he looked like at 3 years old on his magnadoodle. He brought Batman cupcakes to school and had a SpongeBob Cake for our family and Uncle Ben.



On April 7th, Jacob visited our Pediatrician for his well check. He had his final four vaccinations before kindergarten and the last of his "pokes" until he is 11 years old. DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetnus, acellular Pertussis), IPV (Inactivated Polio), MMR, and VAR (Varicella - Chickenpox) .

He weighed 36.5 pounds (35th percentile) and was 40 inches tall (50th percentile).

We were supposed to meet with my mom's sisters and my Grandma for dinner and to celebrate Jacob's birthday, but the flu ran through our house hitting ALL of us, except for James. First, Josh, then Jacob. Jaelyn and I picked it up next and then Josh got sick again. Ben came in town on Monday and had the flu by Wednesday. It was very nice of him to visit us even though we were sick.

By Thursday we were ALL finally better. So on Friday, we met my mom's four sisters and my Grandma (mom's mom) at their resort and went swimming in their pool.

Jaelyn met Grandma Ludwig and Aunts for the first time! Then Josh took the kids home while I enjoyed a delicious dinner with them to celebrate my Grandma's 75th Birthday!

Over the weekend, James had his t-ball game and then we watched two of Ben's softball games from his Phoenix tournament.

Of course this is the same weekend a teenager decided it would be funny to burn down the playground and spoil any chance of fun outside for little kids. (It is now believed to be arson, but I have no proof of my assumptions.)

Today, Jaelyn ate her first meal with a spoon! Organic brown rice cereal mixed with formula.


I think there were a few bites that actually made it in her belly- not just on her belly.

Here is a Newspaper Article quoting Jacob and I about the Playground

Neighborhood playground in Surprise burns to ground

by Weston Phippen - Apr. 12, 2010 04:42 PM
The Arizona Republic

Parents and their children stood around a circle of charred remains Monday, one day after a fire consumed a Surprise neighborhood's playground. Juli Pelham stared at a melted green slide where her 4-year-old son, Jacob, used to play. Only a small portion of the slide's end was left and long drips of plastic hung down from it. The top portion of a swing set, Jacob's favorite to play on, had rolled over onto the ground. A gnarled mass of metal was all that was left.

The playground fire, near 175th Avenue and Paradise Lane, sent huge plumes of black smoke over housetops while it burned.

"You couldn't breathe," Pelham said, remembering the smoke from the day before. "(Smoke) was all over the place. And the smell was 1,000 times worse than it is right now."

The smell of burnt plastic and rubber still hung in the air.

"Obviously, these things don't just catch on fire by themselves," said Kevin Spirlong, a Fire Department spokesman.

The playground was made of petroleum-based plastic, he said, adding that while it burns very quickly, it requires high heat to get started.

The facility was owned by the neighborhood HOA. No damage estimate or information on any plan to rebuild were immediately available.

The playground caught fire around 5:30 p.m. Sunday. Ben Chancey, 32, whose son used the playground, pulled into his driveway across the street as the flames were building. He got out of his car and could see flames spreading from under the slide.

"It spread so fast," Chancey said. "It was just out of control."

The playground quickly erupted into flames and neighbors stood on their porches and walked onto the grassy field near the playground to watch. Chancey felt the heat as he stood across the street.

Firefighters arrived 15 minutes later and put out the flames, but little was left.

"That was a place where a lot of kids went to play," Chancey said. "You have neighbors meeting new neighbors - it brings the community together."

Chancey said he has put out fires started in trash cans near the park before.

Mark Berlando, whose children also used the playground, thought immediately about his kids when he saw the fire and smoke.

"I mean, people are like, 'Oh my God, what if my kid was playing here (while it burned),' " Berlando said.

Our Neighborhood Park

Remember the photos of this park underwater from a few months back...

Here is our park now after a kid was playing with matches...

Jacob and James both had nightmares last night after watching the smoke go up in the air from our house and then we walked closer to check it out. They were very scared.

Jacob was with me when I took the pictures and he is very sad that it happened. He said, "But I wanted to play there. Why was that kid playing with matches?"

Jaelyn is the Best Sleeper!

Jaelyn has been a great sleeper since she was 3 weeks old. She started sleeping 6-7 hour spans at night, waking to eat, and then right back to sleep for 3-4 more hours. She did this until about two weeks ago, when she started going to bed at 7, slept for nine hours until 4:30AM, and then back to sleep again for another 2 1/2 to 3 hours. NOW, just before she turned 5 months old, she started going to bed at 7 and has been sleeping 11 to 12 hours straight without a meal! I remember James was a good sleeper, but not this good. And then Jacob never slept- so I was not sure how this one would go. I honestly feel that their night time sleep patterns have so much to do with their consistent sleep patterns during the day. James had regular naps and so does she - both great sleepers. Jacob was my, "sorry kid, we have to pick up James from preschool" baby so his naps were always being disturbed or forfeited and to this day he has the hardest time going to bed at night. I am so lucky Josh has been home while I have been at school, so she can have consistency to her day.

A Great Week

It's been a wonderful April so far...

Jaelyn turned 5 months old. She is circling her way around the exersaucer that unfortunately has no toys left on it (3rd child). And she is scooting herself around the floor too. At this point she isn't crawling, but she can move a couple inches one way or another. She is also proving herself different than the boys again - NO teeth yet! The boys both got their bottom two teeth around 4 1/2 months old. She has been drooling like crazy on and off for quite some time now. And her pediatrician even took notice that she could see them just under the gums. But they have yet to poke through.

The boys and I had a "special mommy day". This is what they call it when the two of them go do something special with just me and not Jaelyn or Josh. We went to see Disney on Ice. It was a great show. They did so many of the Disney Movies - Pinocchio, Mulan, Lion King, the Incredibles, all the Princess movies, Toy Story and on and on. They even did a Disneyland Parade and "It's a Small World".

Then, we had family movie night. We watched Astro Boy. Jacob liked it, but it made James sad. Any movie that starts with a kid dying at the beginning is a horrible movie! What are these movie makers thinking?? I thought "Up" was the most depressing horrible kids movie of all times. In fact, it had me crying in the first 10 minutes and there was so much that my kids did not even understand. I think it was much more for adults and winning awards than it was for kids!!

It has been a wonderful month so far. The Easter Bunny comes tonight and Jacob turns 4 years old on Monday.