Three notables and Sunday commentary

In no particular order... Three significant things that happened today. 

Just kidding, we'll do chronological order. 

1. Brady smeared poop all over our carpet, his bedroom door, his Sunday clothes, and his face. Sorry Brady, it was your dad's fault. I gave him a pretty stern talking to though and hopefully it will never happen again. 

2. Chris got set apart as elders quorum president. (He was released last week from his ward clerk calling)

3. Christopher and I each picked our teams in our fantasy hockey draft tonight. Normally I try to pick my players based off of their names and how attractive their head shots are. This year my honey convinced me to pick some pretty ugly players. They really better perform. P.A. Parenteau, I'm lookin' at you. 

Awesome parts of today?  

No Sunday meetings this morning for my honey or myself! No bishopric meeting for honey because he was released last Sunday as ward clerk and no meeting for myself because of 5th Sunday!  

Also, church was great. Our lesson third hour was soooo good. I only wish I didn't have to miss the first part because it coincided with Christopher's setting apart. Still, so memorable about the tomb of the unknown soldier and guarding our virtue. 

Brady fell asleep in his carseat at church at 1... Just 20 minutes before the end of church. Happily, he stayed asleep til 3:45, even though he hadn't eaten since 10, allowing me to get a much desired nap. 

The team effort for my nap continues with Christopher putting Abigail down for nap and keeping himself awake so even when Brady woke up and I fed him, I could give him to my honey and go back to bed for a while to wake up in peace. 

We all went on a nice long walk around the neighborhood and checked out the progress on our new church building. If so perfectly hit the spot. 

I pretty much just had a super fun time hanging out with my honey today. And Brady was excellent too, especially considering what a hard time we've been having with teething! And Abigail was pretty funny too. My favorite was when Chris finished his food before and he threw his hands up and said "won!"  And without missing a beat, Abigail threw her hands up and said "two!"  We all loved that "won."  

day out with thomas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poor Brady

Today we did visiting teaching and spent the rest of the day at home. Brady is still having a hard time... My vote is that it's teething related but who knows. He was awake for 12 of 14 hours today. I love that boy but 12 hours with a fussy Brady?  I need some sort of extra monetary reward or something. Holycowjustmakehimstopcryingsomuch! Aside from poor Brady struggling through the day, we all enjoyed ourselves. My highlight (besides visiting teaching which is always awesome) was getting tickets for a day out with Thomas. I hung up the phone from ordering them and was literally giddy with butterflies in my stomach. Abigail doesn't know yet and I'm sooooo crazy excited to surprise her. This is gonna be amazing.

i started sometimes leaving my phone on the bench outside of brady's room because if he catches sight of it, he won't nurse... he has to have the phone.  apparently abigail found it and decided to practice her photography.

putting on some dressup stuff.  she's got a beanie, a headband, and a sun hat.  the head is covered.

this is my fourth one of these in a row.  as soon as i spend one, i get another.  does kohl's know that this is not really profitable for them?

i am raising my daughter to love reading and taking pictures.  where'd she get that from?!

us today

the more accurate version.  includes brady constantly trying to kamikaze himself from my arms.  and it if happens to land him closer to abigail... that's just a bonus.  we've already started the "can you keep brady away from my trains/dollhouse/[anythingelseyoucanpossiblythinkof]?"

do you look at this shirt and wonder "she's had this for close to a year!  how does it still fit?  and it looks brand new!  what kind of detergent are they using?!"  well, the shirt IS brand new.  abigail was blessed with two adopted aunts that gave her the same shirt in two different sizes.  size 18 months started looking a little small so we've upgraded to 2T.  many many thanks to sarah and lynell!  and sarah... yes, those are the pink skinnies.

they say a colorful meal is a healthy meal.  not looking so great for my angel hair pasta with butter and parmesan cheese...  in a white bowl no less.

ever heard of a college student still sleeping with their baby blanket?  i have.  and sometimes i wonder if that will be abigail and this dog.  

Again?!

All things considered, today was a good day. The biggest downside is that I woke up with flu-like symptoms and my clogged duct way worse than yesterday... so i seem to have mastitis yet again. I've lost count how many clogged ducts I've had nursing Brady and who even gets this when their kid is nine months old?!  Last time I had it was April sometime. I remember it was the same day as our new beginnings program and I felt like I was on the verge of death. Anyways, today, thankfully Abigail had a friend coming over so she was occupied while I managed a fussy Brady (who hasn't really been nursing for the last five or six days... Hence the duct issues) and using all the free time today that I could manage, I finished all of the young women open baptistry invites. And I made Brady zucchini and he loves it. And Abigail napped without a problem, which I thought would be a bad thing and cause her to be awake super late but apparently the whole time I was at mutual tonight, she was begging Chris to put her to bed. So I finally gave in at 8:30 and she went right to sleep. I wonder if she's feeling okay. Young women's tonight was super fun. Trivia from the bios from the presidency and 12 and a scripture chase style worksheet about the may conference ensign. And jen's baby was drunkenly adorable. And really we just all had a blast.

Basically, I have zero appetite, I feel sick to my stomach, I've barely eaten all day, I've got full body aches and chills, nursing hurts like crazy, and any time something comes within five inches of my chest I inhale sharply anticipating the pain. And through it, I've felt so blessed and loved by my friends and my Heavenly Father. Good days are truly determined from the inside, not outside. 

But still, hopefully my body feels a little better tomorrow...

it turned out okay

this could also be called "lds exhausted: part 2"

i knew i had a number of things to get done today but didn't think it would be so rushed because... well, i had a whole day to do it and a husband that could watch the kids while i get everything done!  it didn't really happen like that.  the day started out normal enough but then by noon, christopher was gone to give someone a blessing.  went he got home, i started baking the sweet potatoes for my souffle and mowed the lawn and then jumped in the shower.  by 2:30, i was driving to the church to decorate our october/november table for the ward birthday party.  i was hoping it would be super quick but when i got there, we had two long rectangular tables instead of one single round table and the table cloth provided didn't reach the whole way and the stuff i'd brought to decorate weren't gonna work.  luckily, the main party planner brought a ton of her halloween/thanksgiving decorations that i could use but i was still up a creek with the table cloth issue.  i ended up scouring the relief society cabinets and found a cabinet full of awesome table cloths... not our ward.  thank goodness for lds tools and my friend, andrew, that helped me figure out how to look up directories of other wards in our stake.  i left a voicemail for that ward's rs president explaining the whole situation.  she called back but my phone was on silent.  then i called her back and she gave me the go ahead to help myself but please not get the nice ones stained with food.  ummm, so i helped myself to some middle of the road table cloths and even though it took 30 minutes to get that situation all figured out, it was still quicker than running to a store and back to the church... which i didn't have time for.  like literally not enough minutes.  i didn't get home from decorating til 4 and i still had to make my sweet potato souffle.  so i had an hour to make and bake that.  and feed abigail dinner, and feed brady and put him down for a nap, and clean our disaster of a kitchen/great room because christopher invited people over for the byu game, and i had to finish getting ready because when i went to set up the church, i had wet hair and no makeup (what does this say about me that i let myself go out like this all. the. time. because holy cow makeup is annoying and completely overrated), and really it was just a bit hectic with abigail wanting to help me cook (and almost knocking all of her teeth out on our counter tops when the chair she was standing on fell over) and brady non stop crying because he's having a rough couple of days and isn't in the mood for me to keep neglecting him.  and then our babysitter was 15 minutes late and [sigh] ugh.  see how there are no paragraphs?  that was my day.  my day was a serious case of the "no paragraphs" and it was bad news.

but y'know what?  my sweet potato souffle (i used double the sweet potatoes but followed the rest of the recipe exactly.  next time i will cut sugar in half) came together great and i pulled it out of the oven as we were leaving (late babysitter means it finished cooking earlier but i turned off the oven and let it stay warm in there) and so when we all sat down at the party to eat our food, it was still gloriously hot.  and it was awesome.  it was my first time making that recipe but paula deen never disappoints and this time she knocked it out of the park.  everyone was raving about it and how amazing it was and how it was perfectly hot still and on and on.  i'm totally a words of affirmation person and it made me feel so great to know i had done something to make people happy.  sometimes you perform acts of service and never really know if it was truly helpful for or appreciated by the recipient.  i like to know when it is.  and our october/november haunted thanksgiving table actually turned out looking pretty cute and everyone loved it which was a relief because if it sucked, i was the only person to blame.  and they had three categories to vote on and our table actually won one!  i didn't vote for our table and i don't think our table deserved to win but it was fun just the same.  and everyone sitting at our winning table got a candy bar so that was fun.  and they did a family feud game and it was awesome and hilarious.  the guy that played the game show host was absolutely perfect.  and he had a gigantic microphone that i think someone had to steal from a podium or something.  the girls i was sitting with were cracking up the whole time at the responses and really just everything.  one of our favorites was the question about what lehi took with him into the wilderness and "yes, liahona is up there.  doesn't matter that he didn't actually take that with him, all that matters is that 8 people said he did."  ha.  and even though i ate way too much and felt sick afterwards, it was soooo worth it.  our table had incredible food.  the october people brought homemade bread and salad, some sort of chili casserole with crescent rolls on top, hot dog crescent mummies, bottles of martinelli's that hung out in smoking dry ice and the november people brought rotisserie chicken, stuffing (it was the most amazing stuffing i've ever had in my life... golden raisins, apples, and apparently it was made with corn bread... i'll share the recipe here as soon as i get it), sweet potato souffle, and a chocolate silk cream pie.  ohmygoodness it was all so delicious.  i admit i had a kinda downer attitude about the event because getting people to rsvp is necessary (because of the potluck aspect) and about as easy as climbing kilimanjaro and i wasn't keen on the "pay for a babysitter for a date night where you'll sit at a different table than your husband."  but everyone mixed and mingled and chris ditched his group (their theme was duck dynasty... which has nothing to do with june but it was creative and i totally voted for them and they won a category too) to come sit near me while we watched the family feud game.

and the rest of the night was just fine.  boys watched the game, i put kids to bed and finished the personal progress board so it'll be ready for church tomorrow.  hallelujah.  it is shocking the amount of hours that go into something as simple as a poster board to track personal progress.  seriously hours and hours.  abigail didn't nap this afternoon (we're trying to phase her out... it's going ehhh) so she went to bed with zero resistance.  after we prayed, i thought maybe there was a chance i could hold her and she would just fall asleep on me (100% wishful thinking because that is soooo not her style) so i just stood by her crib and held her and told her to put her head down on my shoulder.  after a minute of that she put just looked at me and said "will you put me in my crib now?"  ha.  and then when i did she rolled right to her side and closed her eyes.  poor girl...  she really still needs a nap during the day but there's just not enough time to have a nap and enough awake time before bed.  transitions... they're all transient, right?  transient transitions.

who's pumped for sunday tomorrow?!

this girl right here.

tonight for bed, i encouraged abigail to pick a book we haven't read yet but she kept coming back to "tell me about your day today" and since we've only read it once and it was at least two weeks ago, i gave in.  well, it describes my day perfectly.  it's about a little boy who loves going to bed.  and when he's in bed, he asks each of his stuffed animals about their day and then lastly, they ask the boy about his day.  the recurring words for each day's explanation are "the who,/ the what,/ the why,/ and the way.../ the whole wild thing.../ turned out okay."

that was my day today.  and yesterday.  and the day before.  and really this whole week.  it's been super busy with just tons of random things and even the time i spend with my kids has been stressful because i'm thinking of everything else i need to be doing.  well, this entire week, and my crazy long to do list, all got done.  and the whole wild thing...

turned out okay.

lds exhausted

i. am. exhausted.

my day has been almost 100% devoted to my calling/church.  what on earth do non-lds people do with all their free time that isn't spent devoted to callings and such?!

from the minute i woke up, i was answering emails and calling and texting people to figure out the situation for yw volleyball tonight.  i'd only been awake 30 minutes and i'd already been in touch with my secretary, the ym president, all three of my class presidents, and my ward party co-host.  the rest of the day i was in touch with our yw personal progress adviser, the main ward party planner, multiple people in my party group to give them potluck food assignments, and multiple young women to ask about babysitting my kids during the ward party.  and our yw personal progress adviser came over for a few hours so we could work on our personal progress board and then i worked on it more after she left and then went to young women volleyball at the church from 6-7 and then to the grocery store to pick up ingredients i needed for my own pot luck dish and then got home just in time to put groceries away before we all headed over to my in laws to meet elder pieper of the seventy, who is in town right now.  and when we finally got home and got the kids to bed, it was 10:45 and i. was. beat.

all of this was worked around abigail who was doing pretty alright, and brady, who was far fussier than usual and by 5 i realized this severe migraine causing me to be nauseous and feeling like i was on the verge of throwing up... oh, maybe that was because all i'd eaten all day was a few bites of abigail's oatmeal sometime around 11 o'clock.  it was a true tender mercy that the blinding pain in my head completely vanished by the time i went to bed.  like i went from searing stabbing pain in my left temple and behind my left eye and needing to lay down because i felt like i was going to puke at 6 to feeling almost normal at 8 and then literally no pain at all by 11.  it was a literal miracle.  i can't take excedrin or anything because i'm nursing and typically my headaches last for days at a time.  and migraines that bad may subside some but stick around in just a "really bad headache" status for at least another 24 hours.  i don't recall a recovery this fast... ever.  and i get headaches so often, i recently had a friend suggest that i get an mri or something.  i always say i'm going to be better about recognizing and recording miracles in my life.  well, this one blew me away, and even though i don't anticipate forgetting something this big... at least not anytime soon... i'm recording it.

brady at 9 months

happy nine months, brady boy!

here's the best i've got for a 9 month run down...

sleep... it's improving!  i can't even remember the last time i swaddled brady.  at least three weeks ago.  probably just right after i wrote his 8 month post.  there was a bit of a learning curve figuring out how to sleep well without the swaddle, but since then, it's been so much better!  i'm not sure if it's dropping the swaddle or increasing solid foods during the day (or likely a combination of the two) but brady has been sleeping longer and longer stretches at night.  if he wakes during the night... it's just once (normally because he needs a diaper change) and three nights in the last week, he's slept a full 12 hours without waking at all!  keep up the good work brady boy!

brady is awesome at sitting and really great going from sitting to stomach.  he walks his arms forward and looks like he's about to take off crawling, but really he just slides onto his belly and then just rolls wherever he wants to go.

as of two days ago, brady can army crawl!  he only does it when he really really really wants something (normally my phone but occasionally for a toy) and it's hilarious to watch.  he looks like a wounded soldier in battle.  his right arm stays tucked under him while his left arm does more reaching which gives him the wounded look.  and he's so intense about it but he moves at the speed of... molasses.  i need to get a video before his crawling evolves.  kids grow so fast, hopefully i don't miss this.

like i said last month, clothes are all over the board.  everything from 3 months to 18 months.  diapers are still size 2 during the day and size 3 at night.  poop is awesome because he pretty much never has blowouts but the downside is that his diapers aren't smelling like roses (outkast anyone?).  i really don't know how but abigail's poop didn't smell at all at this stage... brady's definitely does.  some days he only has wet diapers, and then some days, i'm changing dirty diapers every few hours alllll day long.

brady still has the best laugh ever.  and getting him to laugh is the easiest thing ever.  sometimes just eye contact, sometimes making a suspenseful "i'm gonna get you!" kind of noise... you don't even have to touch him.  he also thinks fake laughing is hilarious.  like if you literally say "ha ha ha ha ha."  although real laughing works too.  especially when abigail is laughing... then brady will laugh too.  other things that make him laugh... tickling him (anywhere from head to toe.  behind his ears, in his neck, his chest, back, sides, under his arms, thighs, legs, feet... i'm not sure i've found anywhere that he's not ticklish), attacking him with stuff animals, tossing him in the air, faking like you're going to drop him, pushing him over and then catching him before he hits the ground.  really, if he knows you're playing with him and you have a playful energy, whatever you do will get a deep laugh and it'll go forever... or at least however long you continue to do what you do.  it's positively intoxicating.

brady still has no teeth and absolutely zero signs of teething.  no drool, no fussiness, no chomping on everything in sight (he'll mouth stuff but he's not going to town on it), nothing.  it is wonderful.  and he's got the cutest gummy smile. hopefully he gets teeth eventually so he can start eating more real food though.  nursing is still going great (he never tries to bite me... i totally anticipated that happening by now) and although he's super easily distracted, i just make it a point, when we're home, to always nurse him in the glider in his room and abigail is amazing now at not interrupting.  ever since i explained to her that brady has trouble eating when she's around, she wants to do whatever helps him so she'll go play by herself and if she does come in, she opens the door really slowly and quietly, sees brady is still eating, and then quietly closes the door and tiptoes away without saying a word.  the sibling love between these two makes me so anxious to see how they'll get along when they're a little older.

brady really likes to eat food.  he loves loves loves cheerios.  i think because they're so quick and easy for him to feed himself.  he prefers to feed himself but most of his "i-have-no-teeth" food options aren't really easy finger foods.  so, in the mean time, i try to occasionally give him things he can feed himself (like raspberries) and more often than not, try to get him to let me spoon feed him.  he likes the food, he just wants to put the spoon in his mouth himself... after inspecting it himself.  jarred peas and green beans are his favorite veggies, and he likes sweet fruits like applesauce, mashed pear, and jarred peaches.  real fruit is sometimes a little too flavorful i think.  or maybe he just doesn't like the tartness?  he'll eat fresh kiwi, peaches, raspberries, etc. but it normally takes him three or four bites to get into it.  my favorite food to feed him is boiled egg yolks.  i boil a bunch of eggs at a time, and then i go ahead and peel all of them and separate the whites in one container and little egg yolk balls in another container (whites for abigail, yolks for brady... works great!) so they're so simple to just crumble and stir in with jarred food or baby cereal or mashed up anything.  quick and cheap and easy way to bulk up his food with some fat and protein.  and from what i can tell, it adds good flavor.  my other favorite food to feed him is bananas.  because it is also quick and cheap and easy and it's one of brady's favorite foods so i know he's not going to be finicky about eating it.  my favorite is to cut slices into quarters and feed him with a spoon but of course his favorite is to feed himself.  but really, i love the convenience of being able to throw a banana in my purse along with one of those little take n toss (although i never toss) baby spoons and we're good to go.  one other thing to mention is that i can't get over how much this kid eats.  for having such small percentiles, he really puts the food down.  tonight for dinner he had half an avocado, a handful of mashed raspberries mixed in with baby oatmeal, more raspberries just thrown on his tray that he fed himself (abigail started him with those... she actually gave him grapes first but i took them away... how many times do i have to tell her, you can't eat grapes unless you have teeth!), and a jar of green beans with an egg yolk and oatmeal cereal mixed in.  i swear he was in his highchair all night long.  it was well over an hour.  and it ended with a hose down shower in our kitchen sink.

k, that's all for now...  brady, we love you so much and think you're awesome blah blah blah... basically, you are the best little bundle ever and i love you so much i get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about your smile.  there's a reason i creep into your room a million times a day to see you sleep.

i just can't help myself.

Mondays are so great

Today was a good day. I was productive doing stuff for my calling, Brady napped great and played awesome by himself, Abigail and I read books together for over an hour and a half, we all hung out outside together with our neighbors across the street, I made tomato soup from scratch and it was delicious, we had a great fhe lesson from my honey, and bray army crawled for the first time. Thank goodness for good days! 

We're alive

Maybe I'll write more later but I just wanted to hop on here and say that although half the state is flooded, we are alive and doing just fine. I mean, this area behind our house turned into a lake fed by a river of white water rapids, but we are still dry. I have some really caring and concerned friends and family checking up on us. Loved ones, thanks for checking up on us. 

what i'm loving tonight

no bake energy bites- while i've eaten these before, this is the first time i've made them myself.  quick, super easy, very little mess, and simple enough to include your three year old in every step, these are a win all around.  and they taste like no bake cookies but are way healthier.  not guilt free but definitely a healthier option.  i told myself i was going to stick to the recipe because i never stick to whatever recipe i'm following and i got most of the way down the list but by the end i was pouring tons of honey on top and scooping in spoonfuls of nutella, just for kicks.  but i will have you know, they are superb.  i rolled them into little balls the size of a rounded tablespoon and got about two dozen.  we'll just have to see how long they last... next time i think i'll go ahead and double the recipe.

dad is fat- it's 275 pages of jim gaffigan, almost as funny as the hot pocket segment i fell in love with way back in the day.  and as much as it's meant just to make you laugh... he's got some real truthful gems that i find myself wanting to highlight because they're just that good.

and that's our short list because it's bedtime now.

Matching pants

"Mommy!  We have matching pants!!!"