old pictures from last week

not the safest thing i've ever done but i let abigail cut her own nails.  she did a really awesome job.  like way better than i was anticipating.

hi there!

"is he wet?  is he wet on his tongue?"

story time.  from one kid to the other.

she woke up in such a sad mood.  and only wanted to wear this pink bow.  luckily i convinced her to put on undies too and eventually a full outfit!

getting my watch fixed.  check out her shoes... should i mention she's still rear-facing in her car seat and that my car now looks like we took a trek in the wilderness?

the adorable house next to the watch place.

baby girl took the dollar store my storm.  i'm sure they looooove us. 

she was thirsty.  so she needed this raspberry iced tea.  like eight separate times.

and these are purple so lets grab a few of those.

love kids in carseats.  life is so simple.

and some neon loofahs and body wash...

i'm sure the dollar store employees loved finding out little stashes of treasures that we left around the store.

while we were in the card aisle looking for an anniversary card, abigail told me this one would be perfect.  i literally laughed out loud.  "congratulations to you!  you're married to me!"

and when i read the inside (still in anniversary context) i really did have a good laugh right then and there.  and several times since.  made me think of how my brother gave someone a condolences card for their wedding card.  it was pretty funny.

i love nursing.  thank goodness brady is so good at staying focused while he's eating, even when i'm multitasking a million different other things during a single feeding session.

easiest baby ever to take pictures of... he loves pictures!

another mirror picture.  snapshot of our day.

ha.

after his first day at therapy.

seriously?  a dream come true for a picture obsessed mom.

dear john

last sunday we went to church with my in law's for john's farewell talk in sacrament meeting.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

he did a really great job and although it was fun to hang out with everyone all weekend (the kelsey grandparents and steph and her nate were all in town), it made me super sad because i'm really going to miss this guy.  

let's back up a bit... when i married into the family, john looked like this...

and he was my biggest struggle of marrying into this wonderful family. don't get me wrong, it not like we battled it out or anything, it's just that it took some getting used to having three little brothers, especially when john was the instigator and the three of them were always getting in super annoying fights with each other.  i was used to being the annoying little sibling, so going on vacations and being stuck in the car with an "i'm not touching you, i'm not touching you, i'm not touching you" john was enough to make me want to pull my hair out.  he was hard to be around and hard to love.  (my mother in law even admitted tonight when we got together for john's setting apart, that john has definitely been her most challenging child).  so it's really pretty amazing that somehow, without me ever realizing it, he turned into this super awesome guy.  he's one of the most loving and sincere individuals i've ever ever met.  he is obsessed with babies and kids and wants to marry a career woman so he can be a stay at home dad.  he's better with my kids than i am and more patient too.  i can count on him when it matters.  and... i really really really enjoy his company!  he has an amazing presence and he's just so fun.  i love when he's at family gatherings (i missed him so much while he was at college) because i can just hand abigail over and i know she'll be safe and well taken care of while having the time of her life.  he is truly incredible.  i will gladly write a letter of recommendation for him to any girl on the fence about dating or marrying john.  he's a good catch and i already can't wait to be friends with his wife.  she's going to be awesome.  

so tonight was pretty emotional for me.  he's a missionary now!  honey couldn't be there because he was still in LA for the stanford mba weekend thing (he wasn't at mark's either.  i have better attendance at his family functions than he does), but i texted him pictures afterwards to try to keep him from feeling so left out.  the setting apart was so special.  i am so excited for him to be a missionary in argentina and i know he's going to be great.

i still can't believe that he grew up in front of my very eyes without me even realizing it.  his personality completely evolved and his height doubled.  i can only imagine what the next two years will bring.

it's five o'clock somewhere

and right here.

my watch stopped working at 5am on monday the 22nd.  let me tell you, when i woke up that morning, i was beyond confused.  it was light outside (i know the sun rises early but not THAT early!) and i felt rested, but my watch insisted i still had several more hours to sleep.  well, my phone insisted that my watch was wrong.  

i haven't had to get my watch battery fixed since we've lived here so i wasn't really sure where to go.  asking my mother in law, she said walmart will do it for just the price of the battery ($5) but that they'll tell you before hand that if it breaks, they can't fix it.  or i could take it to the mall (is there more of a pain in the butt place to go with two young kids?  i think not.  i avoid the mall at allllll costs).  

so it took forever to actually be at walmart AND remember to get my watch fixed but eventually it happened.  some ghetto cross between usher and snoop dogg tried to get my watch open but couldn't.  he didn't look very confident.  he even asked me to try and again repeated that he didn't want to break my watch since i didn't buy it at walmart and technically he wasn't allowed to work on it.  so i just said thanks and took my watch back.  i've had this thing for well over ten years... i'm not about to lose it now!

it's still 5 o'clock.

in the meantime, i kept wearing my broken watch.  when i got home that night, i gave the kids a bath and was drying my hands off when i noticed that my arm was buuuuurrrrrrrning.  like seriously felt like it was burning off.  when chris got home that night from being out of town i showed him my arm and commented that i had no idea where i could have picked up a rash like that.  so i took off my watch and went to sleep.

 

the next morning my rash was mostly gone and i put on my watch again when i was getting ready.  within an hour, it was burning again and the rash was creeping back.  i took off my watch and checked it out and... the walmart guy had scratched the back so now it had a pointy metal part sticking out that was leaving tiny cuts all over my arm any time i moved!  so then i took it off and kept it in my purse.

a day or two later we were out and i thought i'd drop my kohls to have their jeweler fix it.  luckily i called first because actually, they don't work on watches not purchased their either.  annoying.  so then another few days passed.  at home, i finally googled and read reviews for a few places in parker and ended up going to this off the beaten path little jeweler that had a tiny shop in an old home-converted-store.  he took the back off within seconds of me handing it over and had it fixed in less than three minutes.  i also asked if he would sand the back of it smooth again.  $10 later i finally had my watch back!

why do the simplest things sometimes turn out to be such an ordeal?!  after a few weeks of that, you better believe i haven't been taking my watch for granted since i got it fixed!  sooo glad it's only 5 o'clock twice a day.

weekend news...

it's our sixth anniversary today!

i'm teaching the young women tomorrow for fast sunday.  my lesson is on obedience.

we're starting to get some answers concerning brady's arm.

honey is in california.

we bought a piano.

john is getting set apart tomorrow.

i've got a headache i can't seem to shake.

my house has been a wreck for almost two weeks and i'm starting to get used to it.

i think brady's teething again.

last night i was so tired but had so much to be grateful for, i think i fell asleep at least eight times during my prayer.  life is really, really good.

a perfect celebration

we haven't been married that long, but our anniversary seems to always get the shaft.  this year it's that my honey is in LA for the weekend at a stanford thing.  sooo, we celebrated thursday night instead.  and it. was. perfect.

several weeks ago, i curled my hair for the first time in umm a really long time... like ten years probably.  it was because i was insanely bored and i thought it would be fun to try something new for our date night (it was the most recent time we went to the nuggets game) and my doesn't-ever-notice-anything-ever husband kept commenting on how much he liked my hair.  who knew?!

and then i never curled my hair again.  whoops.

so i decided i should curl my hair for our anniversary date.  i am pleased to say that instead of taking a million hours like it did last time, that it took about four or five minutes and no teasing or hairspray or messing with.  just curled six chunks of hair, let it cool, flipped my hair over to shake it out, and called it good.

i won't lie... i felt kinda cool.  like all of the pretty girls at church.  y'know... all the cool moms.

also happy that later in the day, my hair still had some wave to it!  i'm thanking zero humidity colorado for that one.  i couldn't believe it. 

we had been planning to go out to bonefish grill, but then i happened to glance through a carrabba's menu online and found a number of delicious cheesy dinner options i wanted to try, as well as this little beauty that i promptly took a picture of and texted to my honey with a "actually, i think we should go to carrabba's... and make sure to save room for this dessert" kind of text.  thankfully he was on board.

he walked in the door with a card (my only request for any special occasion) and a long stemmed rose.  it's kind of our thing.  i can't even count how many roses he gave me while we were dating and newly married.  sometimes he'd just walk in the door after a regular day of work... with a rose for me.  and they were always so pretty.  white, yellow, purple, peach, red, pink, and some of those ones that are blended with multiple colors.  sooo, the single rose is pretty significant for me.  he stole my heart all over again when he walked in the door with that rose.

then my awesome mother in law came over to watch our kids.  i like not having to pick up or pay a babysitter but what i really really really love is being able to leave my children and not have to worry about them one single bit.  dinner was great.  the food was excellent (honey got a pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms which was delish and i got the seafood cannelloni which was absolutely superb.  and we got that "chocolate dream" for dessert of course... also a winner) and the company and conversation was perfect.  we talked about what we want our next trip or two to be.  honey really wants to go to alaska but i'm not in a hurry for that so we're thinking peru to see machu picchu with going to the congo on our two or three year plan (we'll have to skillfully work that around nursing and pregnancy).  making big plans for our future (like buying a house and having kids) was always one of my favorite things to plan and talk about while we were dating/engaged/newly married and it turns out, it still is.  but now we get to plan trips!  anyways, it was all perfection.

six years!

we were done with dinner by 8 or something and had time to kill.  i really wanted to look at furniture on our way home (am i the only one that gets giddy walking through furniture stores?!) and after asking me four times if i was really being serious, honey pulled a u-turn (since by that time he'd long passed the furniture store) and humored me with some furniture browsing. 

we decided we needed this office set... until we were too lazy to even add up how many thousands of dollars it would cost.  we'll list it for later.  ; )

we decided we would not like to purchase this table and four chairs for $2105... paying $265 for each additional chair.

but we actually are in the market for a new kitchen table and this one was maybe my favorite option.

and then we were going to go home until i last minute said "noo!!!  turn right!  turn right!  let's go to ross!" because, for some strange reason, shopping at ross also makes me giddy.  i could spend hours in there.  seriously.  i told honey that baby girl needed these shoes (and he was actually not putting up a fight about getting them!  like when we left the store he was all "wait, you're not getting those pink shoes?!") but i couldn't convince myself to get them knowing that baby girl actually already has a pair of hot pink slip on shoes that i got for her on clearance from target for just a few bucks.  buuuuut i still don't know if this was the right decision because i can't stop thinking about these little pink polo toes.

and then when we got home, i opened honey's card and he opened his gift.

i know just what he likes.  it is wonderful that i can buy his happiness for $2 in the form of chocolate twizzlers.

reading the sappy, sentimental note i wrote on the inside of this book.

milk duds, book with love quotes, chocolate twizzlers, and chips.  $5 present to celebrate our five years of marriage (that's an inside joke... last year honey's card wished me a happy fourth anniversary... so now we just subtract a year).

so now, even though i'm missing my honey on our anniversary (it's after midnight!  i need to go to sleep...) i'm  pretty content just replaying our perfect celebration from last night.

these six years have been good to us.  i can't wait for a million more.

Playdough glasses

We took turns. We're really good at sharing.

Falling in love

Yesterday and today have felt like forever. In the very best way possible. Like they've been so amazing I have trouble remembering life a week ago. This week I've been truly falling in love with Brady. Judge all you want that that should have happened in the hospital but after two kids, I've realized I'm just not that kind of mom. Brady has made me doubt myself as a mother in a way I never ever ever did with Abigail. He's a really cute kid but he's just been harder to love. Harder to care for. Hard on me as a mother. Emotionally, spiritually, physically (on the severe back pain!) and really in ways I can't describe.

He's getting easier (or at least it's getting easier to care for him but maybe I'm just getting better at figuring him out!) but he's still not a predictable piece of chocolate cake. But something has clicked (although I'm sure it's probably just one of many in a long series of clicks) and it feels so good. I'm crazy about nursing this kid, I get so excited to rock him to sleep if he's having a difficult time settling down to sleep, I can't get enough of his smiles and laughs and having him hang out with me like the little buddy he is, and I don't always wish he was sleeping! I washed his hair the other day with lavender shampoo (baby girls call... It's purple) and so after his bath I was smelling it and noticing it more. And y'know what? His hair isn't super dark anymore! And it's fuzzy and stands up a little! I don't know why this was such a pivotal moment for me. Maybe because he's starting to look more like me? Maybe because he's growing up? Maybe because I don't remember when Abigail's hair changed from her dark newborn hair to the blonde wispy fuzz? But it made me more attentive to other things too. Like how his right eye is getting less goopy and that he smiles more and is so in to Abigail and that he's starting to hold toys and be amazed at his new skills and that he is getting better and better at tummy time and sitting in the bumbo and I dunno. It's times like these that I wish I was a better writer. Better than just being a scribe for my random train of thoughts.

So today he was pretty happy and interactive even though he was spitting up like crazy and seemed uncomfortable. And I happily rocked him for more than one nap. And then tonight after I put him to bed I hung out in my own waiting for him to wake up. And when he did I just got so excited to go in and see him. Even though it had only been an hour. This is how I was with Abigail. Not wishing she was asleep, always just wanting to be with her. I find myself keeping this kid awake too long because I'm just not ready to out him down for nap yet. And then when he nurses himself to sleep in my arms like he did tonight, I just want to hold him (and do!) while I write out my feelings of how in love I am with this precious little being (I do that too!) and so sorry Brady, if you ever read this and feel sad that it wasn't love at first sight (it wasn't with Abigail either although I don't remember any milestones like this) but everyone has their own falling in love story. My first kid was cool as a baby but as only gotten better and better (terrific twos are seriously so fun) and I know that is the case for my second and will be the case with all my other kids too. Just getting better with age. Knowing my childhood hopefully my own mother feels this way about me.

Life is so good right now. I eased into motherhood flawlessly. Easiest thing I've ever done. The two kid thing? Not so much. It has definitely been an adjustment for me. Mentally far more than anything else. But yesterday and today and I guess this past week, it's all been awesome. I haven't been nostalgic for the ease of life with one kid, I've been crazy in love with my life with two kids, and crazy in love with Baby girl (of course, as always) and crazy in love with my Brady boy.

Do I really have to put him back in his crib?! What a precious little bundle of perfection. I hope someday he can love me a lot too.

Blenda

While we were eating this morning, baby girl asked me where "blenda" was. She frequently asks about the locations of people so that part wasn't weird. It's normally "where's daddy? ... At work at the office?" Or someone we know. Blenda was new.

Where's blenda?
Blenda?
Yeah blenda. Where's blenda?
Umm who's blenda? I don't know who blenda is.
You think blenda's hiding?
Uhhh sure. Yeah, maybe blenda is hiding.


And then a few hours later I saw her face light up with a "BLENDA!!! BLENDA IN PARIS!!!"

One more mystery solved. Although I'm still trying to figure out what she wanted for dinner the other night when she kept telling me she wanted some "coors light."

And tell me that second picture doesn't make you laugh out loud. I can't get enough of this girl.

so happy she's verbal

i am so very grateful every day for verbal communication with my sweet girl.  normally because she's freaking hilarious and makes me laugh out loud allllll the time.  but today i was grateful because she came to me crying and i didn't know why.

if you were trying to trouble shoot this situation... what would you guess was wrong?

 

well, thank goodness she can talk and express herself because all i had to do was ask what was wrong and why she was sad.  and, did you already put in your guess as to what the problem was?

 

she had picked out her outfit and gotten all dressed and told me she was ready to go downstairs.  as i was getting brady, she checked herself out in the mirror and decided that actually she would prefer pink leggings instead of the purples ones she was wearing.  i guess she was worried it was too late to change?  anyways, have no fear, we got things all sorted out.

when abigail was a baby i wasn't really looking forward to having a talking kid because i was afraid it would just translate to a little person yelling "NOOOOO!!!!" at me all day long.  glad that's not the case.  talking with my little person is awesome.