Centerville with Grandma Virginia

Sugar House with Sawah

We made it!

Road trip!

Memorial Day

The blogger app gods heard me!  I've been trying to open this multiple times a day for weeks and this time it worked!!!

So here is a bit of Memorial Day. 

By her own

Baby girl has conveniently combined "by myself" and "on my own" to come up with "by my own."  So all day long I hear "I can do it all by my own."

I think this is what we call "independence." 

when life gets you down

life is such a rollercoaster.  and so very busy.  right now, i'm loving all the usual stuff but currently feeling so overwhelmed with all the stuff i wish i could do or do better.  i really do just feel like i'm on a roller coaster all the time because i can feel awesome and accomplished in the same week as i feel down and discouraged and i know that most weeks will be like that just with varying ratios.  so lately it's been getting overwhelmed with the things i want to cross of my house projects list (like organizing, landscaping, and decorating) and discouraged about sucking at my calling, not even having time to keep in touch with family or friends of any sort, and not being a better wife a mother.  i feel like i'm not doing a good job "connecting" lately... like i just haven't been present.  and i wouldn't call myself a perfectionist but i'm enough ocd that there are way too many things that just don't happen because i keep putting them off until i can do them well.  like blogging.  so many posts that just never get finished (or written at all) because i put it off until i'll have time to add pictures and really tell the full story.  which never happens these days.  especially since my blogger app has been broken for a few weeks (that's what started the sever decline in posts) and getting on my computer at night before bed to blog doesn't work because i'm so sleep deprived that i have no brain or i just have emails to answer, lessons to plan, and other crap that needs my attention.

sooo, don't worry about me but maybe send a prayer my way?  i go through these phases often enough that i'm well aware that it's not the end of the world but i also feel like i'm just trying to stay afloat until this passes and more optimistic thinking returns to me.

a few random things to note:
brady's sleep has been much improved since we started cry it out a week ago and i'm honestly shocked at how much better he's been doing since i've taken a pretty soft approach to it.  my biggest thing now (because as i said, i'm constantly feeling overwhelmed with stuff) is coming up with a game plan to ditch the swaddle and the binky while keeping him headed in the direction of going down for naps and bedtime without a fuss and keeping the night wakings to a minimum and keeping naps at their optimal length.

i mentioned a while ago (in this post) that abigail was in a phase where she was just soooo agreeable.  she could tell me she wanted a treat and i would say, let's eat this sandwich instead and she'd instantly respond "okay!"  and that was the glorious "okay!" stage.  i call it my time of plenty.  because now we're in a time of agreeable famine.  her current phase has been going on for at least a week and i call it her defiant stage.  she'll casually ask me "do you think it's windy outside?" and i'll look outside, see the trees aren't moving, and say "no, it's not windy outside right now."  and then she responds with a "IT IS!!!  IT IS WINDY OUTSIDE!"  it doesn't matter what i say, it will be wrong.  "is it getting dark outside?" "no, baby girl, it's just a little cloudy, it'll get dark later though." "it IS getting dark outside!  it is getting dark RIGHT NOW!"  i can offer her milk and she'll say "i don't want milk!" so i say, "okay, you don't have to have milk, that's fine." "I WANT MILK!" okay then, here's some milk "I DON"T WANT MILK!!!!"  so everything is a "IS NOT" or a "DO NOT."  sometimes it's funny and sometimes it just wears on my patience.  but the part that amazes me is just how drastic and noticable these phases are.  constant okay or constant defiance?  where's my happy medium?

we're going on a little roadtrip to utah.  it'll be our first trip with brady and i'm pretty nervous about it because we'll be staying with people (like not by ourselves in a hotel).  i'm pretty nervous.  it's one thing to deal with your kid's crying and another thing to inflict it on your close friends and family.  combine this with baby girl's defiant stage and i'm sure honey and i are going to be some award winning parents of the century.

deep breaths.  deep breaths and lots of prayers.  eventually baby girl will be agreeable, brady will be happy, and i won't be overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy... right?!  we'll just wait it out.  i'm a patient person.  i can do this.  and speaking of patience... points to me for demonstrating herculean patience with baby girl tonight.  for over two hours.  that is a loooong time for patience of this magnitude and i did it.  there is hope for us all!

some little clothes

just when we thought baby girl was catching up to her proper clothing size, she dropped the diaper and is wearing all the same shorts as last summer.  including brady's pants.

she just did this to be funny.  just to be clear, this was not part of a real outfit.

it was part of his real outfit.

shorts size 18 months

shorts are actually baby capris.  size 6-9 months.  and she's got the same ones in pink too.  and that thomas shirt is 18 months and still fits her great.  good thing because her love for it is never ending.

but rest assured, she has plenty of 2T and 3T clothes.  especially shirts.  because goodness knows that girl is looooong.