Raise 'em right!

As parents, we hope and pray that our children will one day grow up to be responsible, generous, and well contributing members of society. We do our best to be good role models for them and we hope that one day they will make good (even if well-informed by us!) decisions. But sometimes as parents, you have to step in and do what's best for your children. Keeping our children's best interest at heart, we have decided that there a few issues where they do not have a choice. They will go to a Christian church, they will always cheer for the University of Memphis, and they will be Giants fans. Period. Would you let your child run out into the street if a car was coming? No. Would you allow your child to get into the car with a stranger? No. Nor would we allow our children to cheer for the Dodgers or The University of Tennessee.

April 5, 2010 was a big day at the Sells house. Giants Opening Day! We had a big party to celebrate the wonderful occasion. We all got dressed up in our Giants gear and made some homemade signs, complete with Sesame Street stickers (I guess they're Giants fans too!).

"Go Ginans!!!"

Reece-A-Roni! The San Francisco Treat! (ding!ding!)

We are happy to report that the Giants won their game! We even got to see some home runs!

GOING......... GOING.........

GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Flashback Friday

July 6, 2007, we took Jacob to his very first Giants game! Since San Francisco is a bit of a drive, we decided to go to the series in St. Louis.

Jacob had a great time! But it turned out to be a bit much for him. 9 innings + loud noises + July in St. Louis = exhausting!

Ok Mom! Here's a new post!!!!!!

Ok, so apparently I was being very optimistic when I said I would update this once a week! I know all of you have been on the edge of your seat waiting for the next post.

Here are some pictures from Easter. We had our annual Easter egg hunt at Mimi and Pop's house the weekend before Easter and had so much fun!

Here is Jacob in action

Jacob's strategy: Put the basket down, then run and grab as many eggs as you can, put them all in the basket, take about 10 steps, repeat. (As demonstrated below. And check out Dylan tossing his egg in the basket like a pro!) And if he noticed that people were getting ahead of him, he would yell, "Hold on guys! Hoooooold oooooon!"

Reece's strategy: Make Dada run around, grab some eggs before the boys can get to them, put them in my basket, and try to break in and get some candy out while noone's looking.

Afterwards we had some riveting games of hide-and-seek. Whenever it was Mimi's turn to count, Jacob and Dylan would hide on the front door step, get to talking and forget we were even playing! I caught this shot of them while they were having a very in-depth conversation. It's been too long, I can't remember if they were talking about their ideas to fix health care or the latest episode of The Wonder Pets. It was something along those lines. 

Oh yeah! Mimi's coming!

We hope everyone had a great Easter! Coming soon......pictures from our Giants Opening Day Celebration!

I was a better Mom before I had kids

Have you ever heard of the book, I was a better Mom before I had kids? Well, I haven't read it, but I certainly feel like I could have written it! I was always the one in the restaurant or the grocery store that would roll her eyes and mumble to myself about how a parent needed to control their kid; now occasionally I'm the one with the kid screaming "No! No! No!" I also used to hate how society softened up and said to use time-out instead of spankings; now I understand the expression "This hurts me more than it hurts you"....I can't stand to do it! I used to tell Moms to NEVER bribe their kids or reward them for things they are supposed to do. But come on, who are we kidding? Even James Dobson recommends a little "incentivizing". So that's what we do! Like he says, would you work if you weren't receiving a paycheck? So we've decided "incentivizing" is acceptable while:

1.Potty training

2.Staying quiet in church

3.Staying still in a restaurant

4.Sitting nicely on Santa's lap for a good picture

Sure, that may take us out of the running for Parents of the Year, but sometimes you just do what you can to make life easier!

Anyone who has tried to take a picture of Jacob anytime in the last year knows that it is not an easy task. As soon as he sees a camera he yells "No want to!" and runs away. It is very frustrating! Enter, another ammendment to the bribing...I mean incentivizing....rule. When offered a single jelly bean, we went from this (notice the puckered lips):

to this:

.....I rest my case.

As Jacob would say...."TA DA!"

May I present, by popular request....The Adventures of Jacob and Reece!

Two of my New Years Resolutions were to take more pictures of our kids and to start a blog about them. Well now that it's March, I figured it's about time I get started! A lot of our friends have blogs about their kids, and I've thought about doing one for a long time. We have a lot of family and friends who love to get emails about Jacob and Reece, but alas, I never send any. So I thought this would be a perfect way to keep everyone up-to-date on what's going on with Jacob and Reece. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we have the 2 most precious children in the world. Nor does this have anything to do with the fact that we are very proud of them and love to show them off. We're just doing this for everyone else! :)

One reason I've put off doing this is because I'm a firm believer in sibling equality. (Mom- stop laughing!). I didn't like the fact that I would be starting this while Reece is a baby, and I never got to share any cute stories/pictures of Jacob when he was a baby. Then I remembered an idea I got from our good friend Emily Fuller (author of the infamous Twins Come in Twos- Adventures of the Fuller Five blog). Every now and then I will do a "Flashback Friday" or "Turnback Tuesday" or something and post an old picture, story, whatever. But I won't commit to either, because anyone who knows me well knows that I won't be able to stick to one specific day every week. As a matter of fact, this might be the one and only post this blog has!

Here is a recent picture of Jacob and Reece that has gotten a lot of praise. My mom had an idea to do a "Where's Waldo" type picture of the kids and send it to Jason while he was in Japan for 2 weeks. It's turned out to be one of everyone's favorite pictures. I'm even considering doing a whole book of "Where's Jacob and Reece" and do a different theme with every page! You know, once the dishwasher is unloaded, the clothes are folded, the kids graduate college, etc.

Hope y'all enjoy!