Seven Months

Little Bubba is seven months old today.  This has been a trying month with weaning, teething, beginning of mommy separation anxiety, learning to crawl, and a bad diaper rash turned yeast infection.  Our poor little guy really went through it and wanted us to know it.  It is a good thing he is so cute and funny.  I guess we'll keep him - crying and all......because he makes the BEST faces that are so hard to resist.

Tommy crawls like a champ now.  He has started waking in the night for one feeding - usually around two a.m.  If Mommy leaves the room, he panics and immediately starts crying.  He's blowing bubbles and "razzberries" with his tongue.  Now that he can crawl, he is discovering the house room by room.  He loves to find boxes and baskets to pull things out of.  He tries hard to follow Mommy and sisters but gets frustrated when he can't keep up. His favorite foods are sweet potatoes and green peas.  He can't live without his banana teether - or gas drops - or Tylenol - or Mommy.  In spite of the fussiness he is a sweet little spirit who brings laughter and joy to our family. Keep growing little one!

October 27, 2013

This week started off with Lily's birthday.  Since we had already celebrated the previous Saturday, we didn't do much as a family.  I did make her a birthday breakfast at her request - this year she wanted homemade orange julius and a bowl of Chex cereal. 

 She wanted to wear her princess tiara to preschool for her birthday.  Her teacher said that would be fine.  She was so excited to turn five!

 Annie didn't want to be left out - here she is showing us she's three now!  Notice the wet mark on her shirt?  Lately she's been chewing on her shirt collars.  Anyone know how I can prevent that?

We still had cupcakes from our Saturday party so we sang Happy Birthday to both girls again and let them enjoy more cake.

 I love Annie's look of pure delight in this one.

 Lily has been trying to help feed Tommy more.  Sometimes it goes well....and sometimes it doesn't.  But I love to see the bond they have.  Lily is trying to be such a good helper and big sister.

The girls went in for their annual check ups.  This year Lily had to get her shots for kindergarten.  She was so brave, she didn't even cry.  Annie was very scared - especially since she had recently had surgery - she cried for a while after her shots but recovered from the pain quickly.  Lily was hurting for a few days and discovered the comfort of a heating pad on sore muscles.  She was addicted to it.  Lily is in the 80th percentile for height and the 22nd for weight.  Annie is in the 9th for height and the 10th for weight. 

Enjoying one of the presents from Mom and Dad - a Tinkerbell puzzle.

Annie helped me make snickerdoodles to take to my visiting teaching sisters.  She likes to roll the dough in the cinnamon sugar.  But I think she likes to "test" the finished cookies even more.

Lily snapped this big cheeser of Tommy.  She was proud of her work.

Tommy has been grumpy!!!!!!!!!  We think it is teething but his gums aren't swollen yet, so we still have a long road ahead of us.  He finds comfort in chewing on his receiving blankets.  I go through one or two a day because he gets them so wet.

 I went to our Relief Society super Saturday activity and was able to make this.  I am not crafty at all so I was excited to finish something I actually want to display in my house.  It looks better in person.

The toy mess makes me crazy every....single....day.  We have a huge open basement for the kids to play in but they like to drag everything upstairs.  As part of my October personal peace project I am trying to live in the moment without being upset that it is not meeting my expectations.  As I looked over a particularly messy day, I realized I won't have little ones in my home forever.  Someday I just might miss the mess and chaos that come with child's play.  So I snapped a picture before we started cleaning up.  Just to help me remember this phase of our family life.

I included the girls in the cleaning process and then snapped another picture of how I want to living room to look.  After looking at the two pictures, the kids decided they like the messy room better because all their toys and blankets are easier to find.  I will be thankful for this time in my life, I will be thankful for little hands that make big messes in their quest for fun, I will be thankful for little helpers who willingly pitch in when asked........repeat.....three......times!!!!!!!!

Jeremy has been working hard on the basement, framing in the windows and closets in the office and bedroom.  We bought doors for the bedrooms last night and hope to get those up while Papa is here visiting.  So exciting to see it coming along.

We are having fun preparing for the girls' very first friend birthday party.  Plus Halloween is coming up.  So many fun memories are waiting to be made next week.  See you soon.

Birthday Celebration Part One

With the girls' birthdays being so close together, we still have trouble knowing how to celebrate each one separately.  For now they seem glad to share their special days.  And Annie is so young that she doesn't really know when her birthday is exactly - which gives us a little breathing room.

We had our little family party on Saturday.  First we took the family to a huge straw maze, then we got pizza, opened presents via Skype with Grammy and Grampy, had cupcakes, and played with the new toys.  The kids were all smiles and excitement all afternoon long.  And the first thing they did Sunday morning (and all the rest of Sunday after church) was play with their gifts from Grammy and Grampy.

 This is my favorite picture from the maze.  They had so much fun charging the way and deciding when to turn right or left.  We got ourselves pretty lost, but it was a lot of fun.  And we made it out before dinnertime....and most especially before they start haunting the maze for grown ups.

 Our beautiful almost five-year-old!

 This pipe led to a maze within the maze.  It was full of tunnels and small places to crawl through.  The girls could run through it but Mommy and Daddy had to bend over and sometimes crawl to keep up.  I think the tunnels were everyone's favorite part of the maze.

 Once we made it out, the kids didn't want to leave.  Lily bravely jumped into a big haystack multiple times.  Annie and Tommy were more interested in playing with the straw.

 By dinnertime we were all so hungry!  Annie was a little worried about the stretchy cheese on her pizza.  She didn't know what to do with it and just sat here like this until we noticed her.  We eventually got it cut into a more manageable size.

 Skyping with the Halls was fun.  The girls love their LEGO Cinderella castle set.  I'm talking.....LOVE IT!  They only stop playing with it to eat and sleep.

 So excited for their cupcakes.  Lily wanted lemon cake and Annie wanted strawberry.  They love my strawberry buttercream so that's the frosting we had.  We let them use two of their pirate candles for their pirate party cake.  Lily's was a ship and Annie's was a sword.  There were so many cupcakes left over after making two mixes, that Mommy was able to bring treats to choir practice Sunday afternoon.

Yumm-o!  Happy birthday to our girls.  We love you so much!  Thank you for giving us a reason to celebrate.  You are each a special blessing to our family.

October 20, 2013

So many cute pictures this week.  I had to split this week into two posts - and still save some extra cute ones of Tommy for his seven month post next week.  Hope you enjoy this week's shenanigans....

 Lily making Tommy look like a monkey.  They both thought this was so funny last Monday night.

Annie made it back to gymnastics this week.  After taking some time off to heal from her surgery.  She jumped right back in and was so happy to see her teacher again.

After gymnastics we met Daddy at his office for lunch.  Daddy is actually in a temporary office while his is getting redone.  Soon he will be moving to another location which will be closer to the rest of his team.  Lily had fun drawing our family on his white board.  The black arch between Mommy and Daddy is a rainbow - with limited colors, what's a girl to do?  We love how she gave all of us eyebrows.  After eating lunch, we had spinning races in Daddy's chair.

 Lily and Annie are having a birthday party in two weeks.  Lily didn't like any of the invitations in the stores, and Mommy didn't like the cost of the ones online - so we sat down together and designed our own invitations.  Lily wanted to have treasure and pirate flags on the invites.  We're really happy with how they turned out.  Lily helped stick the flags and jewels on the cards.  She was very proud of her work.

The girls both complain of headaches when we take drives in the car.  So once again we bought them sunglasses.  These were only a dollar a pair so if they get lost, it won't be too hard to replace them.  They want to wear them everywhere!

 Lily is loving dance again.  They have a cute routine and Lily leaves class singing the song every week.  Her first performance will be in March so they have a lot of time to get everything perfect.

While Mommy tried to shower on Thursday, Annie decided to color all over the kitchen floor with blue crayon.  I made her scrub it all up.  She was so happy to do it....can't you tell?

 I made our family's favorite dinner this week.  Annie was all about the noodles.  She just grabbed a handful started munching away before we were even done with the prayer.

Guess who FINALLY started crawling this week?  Saturday night Tommy started making the movements right before bed time.  Then Sunday after church, he took off after a toy.  Daddy was the first to see him do it.  There's no stopping this boy now.

 We learned that we can successfully grow onions.  It was exciting to harvest them.  We've been curing them in the garage for three weeks and now they are ready to store.  Next year we will plant more varieties.

Annie turned three years old on Friday!  Her requested birthday breakfast was cinnamon pancakes with Mommy's maple-vanilla syrup.  We didn't do much to celebrate that day.  But we made up for it the next day.  Plus she'll be having her party in two weeks and she is so excited to wear her pirate costume for her party.

Lily participated in the Primary program in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday.  Saturday morning we had a two hour rehearsal at the church to get ready.  Here's Lily with her friends Claire and Alyssa.

Saturday afternoon Annie desperately needed a nap and insisted she didn't want one.  She fell asleep in her bed bent in half like this after crying for nearly 20 minutes.  Thankfully she did take her nap and woke up ready for an afternoon of fun.  Check out our next post to see what we did.