my little rav 4

i wrote last week about the impending changes necessary for welcoming a third kid to our family.  and how for maybe the past two months, i've been getting so nostalgic about letting go of replacing my rav 4 with another car.  i'm a sentimental person to begin with and it's a fun car to drive and it's got a lot of memories.  well... saturday morning, honey sold it to a craigslist buyer while i was at steph's baby shower and that night, we bought a new minivan.  it's super nice, but of course i'm still missing the familiarity of the rav 4... so here's a post with some crappy pictures i took of it while cleaning it out thursday evening...

first, i had to get real life pictures of it.

the tassels in the top left are from our graduation hats (two yellow from byu and one black from stanford), my makeup in the ziploc bag in the cupholder, my lipglosses in the other little compartment, and the passenger side filled with library books, mail and grocery store ads, my purse, and abigail's preschool tote bag.  typical thursday.

my everyday view.

the two carseats in the back with toys.

and the mess underneath the carseats.  i just gave these seats a scrub down two months ago... that's how fast and easily they get dirty.  that's why honey kept insisting that i needed to get a car that wasn't very nice... because our kids would trash it.  but that's also why i told honey i needed a dark color car that had leather seats... so it wouldn't look dirty so fast.  i won.  ; )  although i will say that honey didn't really put up a fight at all after i explained the reasoning of it all.  he's a good guy.

the car looked so much better after removed all the carseats and kid crap and it felt so much bigger too.  honey was shocked at how much better it looked and was even pretending to be hesitant about selling it.

but that wasn't an option.  and in the daylight, it showed more of its true colors.  ha.

it served us well.  and a nice little couple bought it for their teenagers to share so i'm sure it'll serve them well too.

so long to my little rav 4...

we're entering a new stage of life

i'm at the point in pregnancy where i have to remind myself that i'm not going to be perpetually pregnant... with two kids.  eventually i'll turn into not pregnant... with three kids.  that's kind of terrifying to me because this current stage is really nice and easy and i feel like i have the benefits of three kids while only having to do the work required for two kids.

the transition from one kid to two kids wasn't a huge deal.  i mean, brady was kind of a nightmare of a newborn, but in all of the practical aspects of having kids, it wasn't a big deal.  we were already used to having toys in all corners of our house, a highchair at our kitchen table, and diapers in my purse.  adding another carseat to our car wasn't a big deal and adding a kid to a previously empty bedroom was also no big deal.  the transition from two to three though is requiring more of an adjustment.  first, we've kind of maxed out the bedrooms in our house.  i realize i'll sound spoiled explaining this, but it should come as a surprise to no one that i'm high maintenance so let's just get over the spoiled part, okay?  we have a four bedroom house.  one is the master bedroom, one is abigail's room, one is brady's room, and one is the guest room.  we don't have any spare bedrooms this time around and every day i'm changing my mind and freaking out and having all this anxiety over how i should configure things to make life with this new baby as easy as possible.  with abigail being our easiest and deepest sleeper, it makes sense to put someone in her room with her... either brady or new baby. the problem though is that i don't really want to mess with brady, and i have no clue what new baby will be like.  another idea is to put a pack n play in our master closet, but from my experiencing having brady sleep in a moses basket/carseat by my bed for several weeks, i've gotta say that it's a pain having your child sleep in a place that doesn't have a designated spot for nursing, diaper changing, and dressing.  i need everything to be in the same spot.  we could also put new baby in a corner of the playroom but i'm not sold on that.  or we could put new baby in the guest room (as a guest herself) and just make do for a while... which is actually our best option at this point... hoping that after a few months, it will be clear whether we should move brady in with abigail or new baby in with abigail.  another option is to just finish our basement... but that's not the most financially sound thing to do because we won't recoup the costs when we sell... which will likely be before baby number four.  anyways... those are my thoughts during the day.

also, i was planning to keep my rav 4 until we had four kids.  it's really small, but i figured that i could make it work if i bought three slim fitting carseats.  well, after a lot of research online about our rav four, i discovered that the latch and seat belt configuration and spacing wouldn't allow for a safe install for any carseat in the middle position.  so that eliminated my dreams of fitting three across and i talked to chris about needing a new car.  well, we're likely going to get a minivan in the next two weeks.  i'm excited for the change, but also getting really nostalgic and sad about letting go of my rav 4.  i've never really loved this car, but lately i've realized how much i've actually learned to like it!  i really enjoy driving stick... not just for the extra safety in the snow, it's just kind of nice day to day.  although it is a pain when i need to do something like collect brady's banana peels before he throws them overboard.  because driving stick requires all four limbs.  but even aside from being fun to drive, it's just a nice little compact car that turns well and is easy to park and whatever.  also, it's not super nice or flashy... it just blends in and makes you feel at home.  and has never made me anxious to have my kids eat in the car or get their dirty or snowy shoes all over.  it was really basic and had cloth seats and, as i said, never stole my heart or had me excited to drive it.  whatever minivan i get will be far nicer... so that's great.  but the rav 4... i've known it the whole time i've known my honey.  this was the car he had at byu when we met.  when i got interested in my honey and learned that his car was manual, i told him i'd always wanted to be able to drive stick shift (goodness bless diana and lisa, because despite putting in so many hours with me during high school... i was still horrific) and he took lots of time teaching me.  when we got engaged and realized i would need to be able to actually drive that car in traffic and on hills, we had even more lessons.  it's crazy to me now that i've been driving this car for our entire marriage.  who would have ever thought on those first few dates and group outings to the ice skating rink that years later, i'd be trucking our two kids around in that car... to preschool, the library, playdates... and that we would take family roadtrips and outings together in that car.  it's been fun to have it grow with us over the years.  my first memory in that car was sitting in the middle of the back with my roommates and honey's as we drove someplace super exciting like to ice skating or wendy's.  i remember listening to some sort of punk rock music and berating honey for not wearing his seatbelt and laughing with sawah about who knows what.  it's all pretty crazy since that was in january of 2006.  ; )

granny and papa

these pictures are from last july but i don't think i ever posted about that trip to the farm.  or if i did, i didn't include pictures from my big camera.  so in case i still never get around to it... here are two favorite pictures from that trip.  my grandparents are the sweetest ever.

lemon bars and trains in the dollhouse

abigail's favorite strawberry shortcake book is the one where lemon meringue makes lemon bars that are salty instead of sweet and then she apologizes to plum and makes her lemon bars again and they turn out great.  so abigail and i made lemon bars and she thought that was the coolest thing ever because it was just like the ones in the book! 

abigail kept talking about the "snowmaster."  i couldn't figure out why on earth she was calling this the snow master until she corrected me for the millionth time.  "nooo, the snowman stirrer!"  laughed out loud at that one.

we were having such a good time baking together but abigail got noticably anxious when i told her we needed this loud mixer.  so i broke out the noise reduction headphones we used when we took her to sporting events as a baby.  worked like a charm.

what's not to love?  she kept her book open the whole time so she could look at lemon meringue's lemon bars while we made our own.

there i was, nursing brady on the floor (i'd just changed his diaper and was too lazy to get up) when somehow, abigail tipped over the glider.  flashback to when brady was a week old and i was nursing him and abigail tipped the christmas tree over.  and also when i was nursing brady at a week old and she tipped over a lamp and the lightbulb crashed shards of broken glass all over my bedroom floor and brady's freshly folded clothes and blankets.  ahh, the good old [nightmareish] days.

he can't crawl yet but he can sure roll and scoot.  he gives me frequent scares when i put him on the floor and then he disappears.  i layed him on the carpet and freaked out a few minutes later when he wasn't there.  brady?!  and then he peeked his smiley face out from behind the corner.  that kid is a playful one.

abigail never stops talking.  ever.  it kind of drives me crazy sometimes when it's all directed at me.  but when i'm just listening to her constant chatter narrating her toys?  it is to die for!  her train, gordon, had a conversation with the dollhouse postal lady.  "hi, i'm blue."  "i'm blue too!"  and the time that every single member of the dollhouse, along with trains gordon and henry all rushed upstairs exclaiming "ohhh!  a bathroom!  yes!  it's a bathroom!  see the bathroom!  yes!  we're all in the bathroom!"  and on and on and on and on.  so much bathroom talk.  i have some videos.  we'll see if i ever get them uploaded.  they are pure gold.

Kicking the swaddle addiction

i've gotten my kid addicted to so many things that lately, i've been stressing and strategizing about how to work all these things out.  ideally, before he goes to college, i would like him to be able to sleep through the night, without a binky, and without a swaddle.  those are the three nighttime addictions.  he's almost 8 months old.  i am not proud of this aspect of my parenting him.

when abigail was about this age, i knew it was time to wean her from the swaddle.  it wasn't a problem though because she was already a great sleeper and didn't need a binky so really, it was just the swaddle.  with brady, there are just so many factors in there!  if i'm going to wean him from the binky, is it better to do that when he still has the comfort of the swaddle?  or if i'm going to let him cry it out at night, do i need to ditch the swaddle first because the crying would lead to him busting out of the swaddle and then not being able to fall back asleep?  or if i wean him from the swaddle and he has free arms, maybe the binky won't really be an issue because he can put it back in if it falls out or just gum his fingers for comfort?  there are more scenarios than i would have anticipated.

well, the swaddle will be the first to go.  because i really don't have too much against the binky.  it's working for now.  it's not broken so i won't fix it.  and sleeping through the night?  unless it's a crazy night like last night where i was so tired i wanted to die, i'm pretty happy to run upstairs for a few minutes to nurse brady.  i use the baby app on my phone so i can sleep exactly how long it takes me and it's literally 5-8 minutes from the time he wakes up until i'm back in bed.  but the swaddle?  the swaddle is a pain.  it takes time to do, and only i can do it (meaning, my honey can't put brady to bed) tight enough and even then, if he wiggles enough, he can get out, and all the layers (since he's double swaddled with a swaddleme and a miracle blanket that wraps around a million times) get really hot.  AND the ultimate swaddle deal breaker?  he keeps rolling over.  abigail always rolled over in her swaddle but it wasn't a concern because she was perfectly happy being the little beached whale baby that slept swaddled on her belly.  brady rolls over and he's ticked.  and it sounds like he's going to suffocate in his crib bumper.

i've tried the one armed swaddle before and it didn't go well... so i didn't have high hopes for it this time around.  but i guess brady has matured in the last two months because it's going much smoother than anticipated (knock on wood).  the first time was for his afternoon nap and he fell asleep just great with zero fussing!  he only slept 1h15 but that could have been a coincidence since his sleep was sooooo off from yesterday (sunday and family get together stuff for my niece's baby blessing) which definitely affected his night time sleep and morning nap as well.  his evening nap was in the carseat while we were out.  so the second time with the one arm swaddle was tonight for bed.  went to sleep with zero fussing!  we will have to see how tonight goes and tomorrow's naps!  i'm strangely excited about this.

first nap with one arm out.  practically sleeping on his twisted side belly.

don't look at this picture too long or you'll get a headache.  so blurry because it was taken in a pitch black room.  this was going to sleep for the night... second time with one arm out..

i reread the "swaddle saga" post i wrote when abigail was about this age and dropping the swaddle with her.  i remember it being difficult and dramatic but rereading it, it seems super quick and easy like the transition only lasted a day or two.  i can't imagine that i left out major details because i'm always so longwinded.  i honestly think she was just so easy that this was probably just a huge hurdle to jump [because nothing else was] and so it was difficult at the time and i remember it as being super challenging.  also, i'm semi laughing that i wrote in there...

"anyways, she went down at 9 and the night was not anywhere as bad as i was anticipating although i know it wasn't christopher's idea of fun.  up at 11:45.  up at 2:15.  up at 6:30.  up at 10:45.  i let her sleep in since we were up for about an hour each time.  but really, i was very pleased with it all." 

it's only funny because that insanely rough no swaddle night for abigail is still better than what a lot of brady's nights now are.  i think he woke up at least four times last night.  maybe five.  seriously, how can his daytime sleep be so awesome and his nighttime sleep hasn't improved at all?!  such different kids.  like how abigail had such a terrible awkward bald spot on the back of her head (the pictures in that post show that it's even more obvious than how i had remembered it!) from thrashing her head back and forth in her carseat and while she slept and brady has nice even hair all over.  

also, it's a good thing i don't often go back to reread old abigail blog posts to compare her to brady because it is depressing with how crazy easy she was.  except that it's awesome i even had a baby like that at all (she was one in a billion).  i just had to look back about swaddling to see if my 2011 self had any insightful advice for my 2013 self.  it's fun to see how accurate or skewed my memory is. like in this link... i remembered that she was still happy when she rolled onto her belly but didn't remember that she would sleep like that for her whole nap... and i remember that she was an insanely good sleeper but i had forgotten about the time i put her down for an evening nap and she never woke up.  that post says that i put her down at 5:30 and that she never woke up so i had to wake her at midnight to feed her and change her diaper and then she slept another 8 hours until morning.  ask me the last time brady slept 8 hours.  

i have no clue.

two very different babies.  so wish me luck helping brady drop the swaddle.  and if you want to pray that dropping the swaddle will actually make him so much happier more comfortable that he will miraculously sleep 12 hours straight and be so happy and self soothing that he doesn't need a binky... well, i won't stop you.

also: in somewhat related news.  today was the first time brady rolled from back to belly... well, without his swaddle.  obviously, he's done that before.

potty training... like this?

baby girl is growing up fast.  part of this is exciting because she just keeps getting better and better.  but part of this is so sad because i feel like i can't keep up and i'm once again experiencing the anxiety that comes with not being able to freeze time.  

i started potty training baby girl two months ago.  at first she used a little pink stand alone potty.  then she ditched that in favor of the thomas seat.  then a week ago, when elle came over to play, she saw elle use the potty without anything else, so lately that's what she's been doing 95% of the time.  it's all always changing.  like how she went from being okay with underwear to hating it to loving it.  and how she'll go from loving to go potty and wanting to try all the time to hating it and throwing a tantrum every time to just getting it done like it's no big deal and accepting it as a normal part of life.  or how she went from just doing her thing to NEEDING me to watch her to going to the bathroom by herself and shutting the door.  or how she went from having me place her on the big potty to climbing on by herself to using a step stool to stand on so she could sit on the potty and now just standing on her tip toes to scoot her little bum up there.  always always always changing.  it happens so fast and it's hard to know when it will be the last time. 

one part of it that i don't want to forget is actually something from the days of throw a fit about it/climb on the potty/need mommy to watch/take forever to get things done.  those days were sooo frustrating sometimes.  when it was nap time and i just wanted baby girl to be in bed but i was, instead, standing in the doorway of the bathroom for 30 minutes watching her climb ever so slowly on the potty, sit for two seconds, say "i did it!" when nothing happened, hop off, and do it all over again.  i'd tell her to get back on and she'd say "i did it!" in this voice that i wish had it's own font.  and i'd say "no you didn't!  try again!" and she'd say "i did it!  i tried!  i triiiiieeedddd!" it was funny and hard not to laugh but it was also annoying and hard not to pull my hair out.  one thing that almost always got me what when she came up with "like this?"  my christopher and mom and emmy know what i'm talking about.  i'd tell baby girl to sit on the potty so she could wait for the pee pee to come out.  and then she'd prop herself to one side and say "like this?", and i'd quickly say no and she'd prop to the other side and say "like this?" and i'd say no, and then she'd cross one leg over the other like she's just hanging out, drinking a soda at a diner in a norman rockwell photo and say "like this?" and then i'd normally just lose it and bust out laughing.  

and then it became a game that she'd do when she was eating or getting dressed or cleaning up.  like this? like this? like this?  it makes me almost cry right now just thinking about it because two weeks ago she was doing it all the time... and now she doesn't do it anymore.  it might not be lost forever quite yet but i couldn't chance not writing it down.  

 

 

 

if you come to our house and find the soap sitting directly over the drain with just a small stream of water pouring over it... you'll know baby girl was there.  it's her trademark.

never before did i anticipate that this bathroom could become one of my favorite and happiest rooms of my house.  just "like this."

who's who?

lately baby girl has been learning to differentiate between boys and girls.  i'd say she has pretty much mastered the concept.  to celebrate, let's play a game called, "which one is a boy and which one is a girl?"  it's one of those games where the name of it is also a complete list of instructions on how you play.

ready, set, go!

click here for the answer

maybe i'm totally off on this but aside from the maycock nose, i think they look completely different.  also, baby girl was far easier and better behaved, but my oh my how brady is soooo gorgeous!  they each have their super strengths.  

back to our party of four

i'm so sad.  mother and emmy went home today.  we all woke up early and were out the door by a little after 8:30.  both kids ate breakfast in the car on our way to the airport.  we dropped em off and then headed to cousin sara's house for a delicious coffee cake, bacon, and watermelon brunch.  we hung out for over an hour just catching up and baby girl was in heaven playing with lizzy and eva.  they all got along so well it was like they'd known each other forever.  then it was back to the airport to drop mom off and we were home before one.  the weather could not have been more glorious and we played on the driveway for a while... baby girl riding her bikes and brady lounging in his carseat, smiling for my camera.  something about good weather always makes me feel like "it doesn't get any better than this" which was definitely a good thing since i don't do well with the end of vacations or family leaving town.  the sunny t-shirt weather was my therapy, helping me cope with the loss of the last of the party.

brady and baby girl took naps while i did a few loads of laundry and attempted to get the house cleaned up a bit.  i still have a long way to go.  not like it's trashed (how could it be with my mother constantly doing my dishes and putting things away for me?!) but i have a lot of organizing to do... and i still have to wash and change the sheets on two more beds.  two down, two to go... i'm halfway there!

my honey got home a little after seven and honestly, it felt like he was getting in from out of town... i feel like i've barely seen him or spent any quality time with him in a week since i've just been so focused on hanging out with my family.  and i only spent a few minutes of my time with him telling him how much i'm going to miss waking up in the morning with mom and em and how i was totally spoiled that they would get abigail up and dressed and fed and play with her while i was trying to roll out of bed or get brady up and ready for the day.  spoiled that they're not cooking (i gained three pounds this week), cleaning (mostly my mother), and entertaining my kids and me every second of the day.  i'm wondering how long it'll take baby girl to stop asking about grandpa, grandma, and emmy... where they are and how much she misses them.  i'm kind of wondering the same thing about myself too.

i don't transition well with stuff like this.  i was in mourning for over a week after i got home from my trip to atlanta last september.  this will be hard too.  despite the pain, nostalgia brings, i will attempt to write catchup posts from the last... ummm, two weeks?  yikes, i've been sucking lately.

and fyi, sucking = busy.

Historical evidence

I really wasn't even exaggerating.

i know i've written before about the eating habits, or lack thereof, we had previously in our marriage.  well, when i was doing some organizing yesterday, i found this receipt from 7.9.09 (so weird that this is exactly one year before my due date with abigail... my how life can change quickly!) when we were living in colorado in our tiny, frozen (the heater didn't work and it was always between 52 and 55 degrees) apartment.  it's amazing how accurate my memory is.  i've included a picture of the receipt but i'll go ahead and list what we bought as well...

tortillas

FIVE boxes of cereal

frozen burritos

totino's hamburger pizza

totino's cheese pizza

1% milk

skim milk

2% milk

two cans of spaghettios

three cans of green beans

cream of mushroom soup (looks like i was making green bean casserole)

a loaf of 85 cent white bread

18 eggs

hotdogs

a container of microwaveable bbq shredded pork (for sandwiches)

peach yogurt

raspberry yogurt

cherries (i bet we were taking these to a picnic or something)

a peach (yeay!  something else fresh and non-processed!)

strawberry banana yogurt

strawberry yogurt

mixberry yogurt

raspberry yogurt

all for a grand total of $41.52

that was just a typical grocery trip so now you can understand i'm not kidding when i say an average day included a slice or two of bread for breakfast, a yogurt for lunch, and a bowl of cereal for dinner (or can of spaghettios if we're going to get fancy and have a hot meal).  this is the secret to staying thin and eating for less than $2 a day.  poverty is key.*  i have such fond memories of this time of our marriage... that poor and newlywed experience exceeded my expectations.

*my husband would kill me if i didn't mention that we were not actually impoverished.  we have never been wanting for money... we're just really frugal and were saving up to pay for his stanford mba.

No relation

yesterday i left my phone in baby girls room when i put her down for nap.  when i realized it 30 minutes later i went in there to grab it.  and on my way out, couldn't resist snapping a few pictures.  i love that she sleeps with that dog on her head.

from when she was nine months.  she's grown up a bit huh?

she picked out her whole outfit.

this picture shows it better.  she chose her thomas shirt (of course) and purple leggings (she'll now tell you purple is her favorite color), jeans to go on top, and a skirt to go on top of that.  and a bow.

sibling love

we took the yw to the temple tonight to talk about this year's theme, stand in holy places. it was lightly snowing and the temple looked GORGEOUS.

like way more breathtaking than usual.