Showing posts with label Pictures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pictures. Show all posts

Friday, November 28, 2014

Princess Birthday Pictures - Happy #3!

I don't have time to write a real post, but here are the pictures from Lily's birthday and her princess dress-up party. She had a lot of fun!







Lily's Nana made her an adorable apron.


And I made her a cake.






They had great fun dancing to princess music


We had two Cinderellas, two Snow Whites, an Elsa, and a Rapunzel. 





Happy birthday Lily! We love you!

Friday, August 15, 2014

The New Normal

Well it has arrived: the insanity of a baby and a 2-year-old. Actually, it has been present for a while, which is why this blog has been so neglected for the past few months. I have thought about posting often, but it just seems like there is never any time! I am finally figuring out how to cook (differently). Out the window are all the fun recipes I used to make. I compiled a new list of the very fastest, easiest things possible that are still fairly healthy, and I have still have to do some prep ahead of time or it is impossible.

Things have been especially difficult recently because Adam was teaching an evening class so he never got home until after 7:00. I know it's not that late, and there are some families where the working parent(s) never get home until later. But it was difficult for me. We survived, and I'm glad that class is over now.

Joshua and Lily are completely adorable though and we have so much fun!


Lily loves him, although she gets VERY jealous when I nurse him. For a while, every time I would pick him up to feed him, she would throw a big tantrum and scream that she wanted me to hold her instead. I can't blame her, and I feel bad that she takes it so hard. But we eventually figured out that if she really gets to bed on time, the tantrums are much less frequent and much less intense. So that is now my #1 goal each day: get Lily to bed on time. Sadly, it still doesn't always happen, but we're doing better.

Joshua is growing like a weed! He is also very strong. He can hold his head up of course, and can easily roll over both directions, and insists on standing whenever we hold him. He can support all his weight by himself, as long as we hold his hands to balance him. The doctor said he could be crawling at 6 months! That would be a shock to me, since Lily didn't crawl until 10 months. He is also very cheerful, aside from some recent screaming episodes related to teething. But he smiles a lot and is trying to grab and chew on everything.




He sleeps fairly well, still waking up twice at night, but he goes right back to sleep after nursing so it's no big deal. He has more hair than Lily had and it looks like it might be blonde! It will be fun if we have a little toe-head like I was.

Lily is getting better at handling Joshua and is very helpful. She regularly gets toys for him "so he can be happy."


She talks about him all the time and calls him "Dosua". Some of my other favorite pronunciations of hers include "Cindelella", "Pyoo-tyoo-tah" for "Computer", "Leh-woh" for "Yellow", and my all-time favorite: "pock-sih-pole" for "popsicle". Mostly we laugh at the bigger words she is starting to use in her little toddler voice. Like today she was stirring some food we gave her and said "I am stirring it so it will be quite delicious." or when we asked her to put on her shoes she said, "I suppose I could do that."

I got to take the kids for a visit to Utah for over two weeks to see my family. I went to two weddings and my high school reunion, and visited lots of friends and family.



This is my cousin Christian (3) giving Lily a hug at the wedding of his sister, Aurora.






We also went to Thanksgiving Point with my friend Amberly and her 3 girls for the requisite pony ride.




We spent a day helping my dad remodel his house which he is getting ready to sell, went to dinner at Brick Oven, visited the re-vamped BYU Bean Museum with my dad and his wife Elizabeth, went shopping with my sister, and swam at the AWESOME Provo Rec Center waterpark (for only $5!) with my family.




My brother Stephen and his wife Lisa graciously watched Lily and Joshua while I went to the temple and got my first-ever pedicure (courtesy of grandma Elizabeth!). The icing on the cake was that my brother Daniel took me ballroom dancing, which I haven't done in years, and miss more than anything else about my life before kids. It was immensely fun, and I can't wait to go back just for that!

Here are a few more pictures of the people we had fun with:




This is my friend Amberly's dad Paul (like a second dad to me), holding Joshua and Amberly's new baby.



Lily got to spend time with her friend Mary whom we haven't seen for a while.







The downside was that it was so much fun, the kids never got enough sleep and were very tired and grumpy some of the time. Lily threw the worst tantrums I have ever seen from any child in my entire life. Thankfully, now that we are back on our regular schedule, she is mostly cured and generally back to her normal self. We are very happy to be back home with Adam, and he is very glad to have his family back.


Thursday, February 6, 2014

Stir Crazy!

We have been SO busy lately! I am not sure how things got so crazy around here. Suddenly, in less than 2 months, Adam went from no clients to 5, and I am working 10-15 hours a week. So I have been working a lot on Saturdays, and Adam comes home at 4 on weekdays and makes dinner with Lily while I work. Unfortunately, this has been limiting his time to study for his classes, grade assignments for the class he is teaching, meet with his clients, and work on his dissertation. I have also been doing a home-study HypnoBabies course, which I am really excited about! It is a different approach to natural childbirth, and I think it will make this a really great birth experience. However, it is "labor" intensive (haha), and requires about an hour each day, which I can only do after Lily goes to bed. And Lily never goes to bed before 8:30 (usually more like 9), has stopped napping, and always wakes up at 7. If we put her to bed earlier, she wakes up earlier. So by the time we get her in bed, clean up from dinner (some days), read scriptures, and I do my Hypnobabies studying, it is past our bedtime already! In fact, it is so busy that I am almost excited for this baby to come so we can have more time . . . I said "almost". I recognize that once that actually happens, we won't even have time to sleep!

So how's that for an explanation of why I haven't written in almost two months? Let's see, since I wrote last, we went to California for Christmas, had a wonderful time, got completely spoiled by Nana & Papa, visited San Francisco for our 7th anniversary, got fairly sick, but had fun anyway. Here are some pictures of our fun trip to California.

Lily decorating the tree with her cousin, Amelia. 

And her aunt Amber. 

Playing Mr. Potato Head with Nana 



Christmas morning! 














It was a fun trip. Lily got her fairy wings from Santa, and a lot of other fun gifts. May too many . . . :) We all enjoyed it, but it was also nice to come home and start regular life again.

Then I had a lovely week in January when I couldn't do anything because my back went into terrible spasms. It was so painful that I couldn't sleep or do anything else for four days and had thoughts like "If only I were in labor right now. At least that ends!" Ultimately, the chiropractor said that my huge belly has been pulling my back out of alignment while I sleep. So I invested in a super-awesome maternity pillow, and every night I look forward to snuggling with it! I also spent a lot of days in a friend's hot tub, borrowed a massager from my neighbor, tripled my intake of calcium, and increased my exercise regimen. And now my back feels great, thank goodness!

Otherwise, we are doing well. Lily is growing up and saying funny stuff, as usual. She asks "why" to everything, and has for about a year. Those conversations usually terminate in "because that's just the way God made us." So for example:

"Lily, put your shoes on please."
"Why?"
"So we can go to the store."
Why?"
"Because we need to buy food."
"Why?'
"Because we have to eat in order to live."
"Why?'
"Because that's just the way God made us."

Well, that has backfired. Now, whenever we ask her a question, she responds with "Because that's just the way God made us." Whether we ask her why she doesn't want to eat her cereal, or why she threw her sippy cup on the floor, or why she took a toy away from a friend, or why she is screaming. "Because that's just the way God made us," she replied, with a pesky little grin. It has been funny, but also really frustrating.

The other day, Lily was singing "Jingle Bells" and a little while later I told her, "Lily, you got Jingle Bells stuck in my head." She replied, "You have dingle bells stuck in your hair?" We laughed, and I tried to explain what having a song stuck in your head means.

Then the next day, I was brushing my hair and Lily asked what I was doing. I said, "Getting the tangles out of my hair," to which she excitedly replied, "You getting the dingle bells out of your hair!" Classic.

This next little guy is also making his presence known. He can really kick! He kicks much harder and much more often than Lily did, and I thought she kicked me a lot. I am also getting bigger, and have already had someone ask if I am having twins. Really?! In fact, most Sundays and Tuesdays, when I take Lily to the library, I have multiple people ask, "You must be getting really close, right?" No. I am not getting really close. I am just getting really big! But, honestly, do you have to rub it in? I am certainly grateful that I don't need to worry about him being a low-birthweight baby. But I had really hoped to gain less than 50 pounds this pregnancy. That will probably not happen. I guess I should just be grateful that I lose it easily. :)

To ward off any unnecessary weight gain, I have been successfully avoiding sugar for the past month. However, yesterday I went to a friend's house and she taught me how to make fudge. That kind of catapulted my sugar-resistance efforts. But I thought it was worth it since fudge is Adam's favorite thing ever. I really wanted to make him some for Valentine's Day, but I have failed at making fudge so many times that I knew it would be a bad idea to attempt by myself again. Happily, our fudge was a fantastic success! We made the marshmallow creme kind and the old-fashioned kind - so much work, but vastly superior!

And today, it snowed another 10 inches in Corvallis, and it's still coming down hard! I ended up watching a friend's children most of the day since school was out, but she still had to work. We played in the snow a little, but Lily got cold really fast. Hopefully the whole city doesn't shut down again, or we will be really stir crazy! But if it does, maybe I will get caught up on all my neglected sewing projects. :)