Being a mom

I have been making a list in my mind the past few months about what it's like to be a mom. I want to write these down before I lose them.

I always think about what has changed since having kids. I asked Jeremy this question and he had nothing. I laughed and told him my list.

I never have to worry about the mirror fogging up during the shower, because the door is never closed.

Mom brain is totally real. I have mom brain two different ways. 1. If I don't write things down I forget, doctors appointments, activities. 2. I get up at three in the morning to nurse Emma and I can't get back to sleep because my brain won't shut off! (Last week's example: I have a garage sale in the morning! Ahhh. We are leaving Tuesday for a long trip, Yikes! and I have a baby shower to plan for next month!

My view when I use the bathroom is a child sitting in front of me or screaming because she can't find me. (Sometimes I sneak into our bathroom in our bedroom so I get one more second alone before a baby finds me).

I laugh when Jeremy says he is exhausted after watching the girls for an hour so I can take a Sunday nap.

I don't have to listen to my parents anymore but I do get demands from a two year old who tells me what to do.

When I picture experiencing something new, sometimes just thinking about the preparation going into the trip is exhausting. (We went to the Children's Museum in Iowa City on Friday, I was to tired before we even got there).

Anytime I get a bowl of cereal I better be ready to share it with my babies.

I always tell myself when bad things happen to me "I'm a mom of two, I'm a mom of two." Because no matter what, they still love me.

Every day I tell myself I have one chance to get ready for the day. So if I want to look nice that night, I had better do my hair now or I won't get a chance.

Bedtime is the saddest and best part of my day. I miss the girls but I sure do look forward to that break every day. It is such a relief as a mom when the babies are finally asleep for the night.

I love love love being a mom to my babies. I just love seeing what has changed since being a mom. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Our 2.5 year old!

Carly is two and a half now! Wow. I wanted to update on her while I can still think of things she enjoys doing at this time in her life.

Carly loves Emma. She loves when she is awake before Emma and when I go to get Emma. They have the biggest smiles for each other.

Carly loves to paint. We have paints out on the counter and this past week she has painted at least twice a day. She is really good with watercolor paint and doesn't make a big mess. She is becoming quite the little artist. She even puts a paint brush in each hand and paints.

Carly loves Play Doh. We were at Walmart a few weeks ago picking out a new bumper for Emma's crib and behind me was a huge display of Play Doh. She got so excited and was pointing. I let her out of the cart and she picked a purple one! She plays with this every day as well.

Carly loves to read. I have books in her room and in the family room. I'm not a huge fan of them in the family room it makes it look messy, but she is always grabbing books to read from there and goes and sits on the couch. So I can't bring myself to move them because I don't want her to stop 'reading' them. When she gets her favorite books she will bring them to us and we will sit and read with her. Lately she is hooked on the Disney books, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Dumbo, Lion King. She is still obsessed with the Highlights books that she gets in the mail every month that my parents ordered for her.

Carly loves toast. Anytime I ask her, day or night, what she wants to eat she always replies "toast". haha.

Carly loves her milk. She always has milk before nap time and bedtime and usually when she wakes up in the morning. She likes it in her sippy cups and warmed up in the microwave. Today Jeremy tried giving her a cup with milk, she wouldn't drink it and pointed to the microwave. Silly daddy.

Carly loves eggs. She will only eat her eggs with ketchup on them.

Carly loves to pick the paper off her crayons. This drives Jeremy crazy. She was doing it today during church and was looking right up at Jeremy while doing it. haha.

Carly loves flip flops. Anytime we are going to leave, she looks down at her feet and says 'flip flop?!' It's the shoe she loves wearing lately and hopefully we can get another month or so of flip flop weather.

Carly loves saying 'help'. Sometimes she needs help. Sometimes it's her asking if she can help. Sometimes it's her saying she can do it all by herself. For instance, the other day Jeremy was trying to put her in the car seat. Carly yelled 'I help!' and got all the way out of the car and climbed up into her car seat all by herself. Goof.

Carly loves to be naked, only for a minute though. She does a naked dance and moves her bum back and forth. haha.

Carly is the best big sister. Anytime we are going somewhere, she asks 'Emma?' Like she wants to make sure Emma is coming too. It is so cute. She is always the first one to hear Emma when she wakes up and she gets so excited to go and help get her out of her crib. She loves feeding Emma. We started breaking off whatever we are eating and feeding it to Emma. Carly LOVES this. She broke off a piece of her bagel today and looked at us 'Emma?' to make sure she could give it to her. When Carly is coloring or playing with chalk she always asks 'Emma?' because she wants us to write Emma's name.

Carly loves splash pads and parks. She loves helping us with Emma. She loves closing Emma's door after we lay her down. She loves watching shows. She loves Curious George.

I love my little two and a half year old. I love watching her experience life. It is way better going somewhere new with her and watching her get excited. I love you Carly Ann!

touchdown!

muscles!

goof.

I love how she runs.

This happy girl makes my heart happy!!

Fish face. Sometimes when I ask for a kiss, I get a fish kiss. haha.

Happy to be home

Every time we go on a trip I feel it takes a few days, or weeks, to get back into our routine. 

Boy are we glad to be home! We have enjoyed some nice cool weather here and just relaxing.

I really didn't get ready for the day until 30 minutes before Jeremy was getting home from work today! haha. perk of being a stay-at-home mom, and a perk of not having to go anywhere for a while with the girls. 

Colorado trip!

We left last Tuesday morning for a trip to Colorado. Jeremy's little sister, Kellie, got married! We got to see tons of family and had tons of fun! 

This road trip consisted of 12 hours in the car, cheese-its, peanut m&m's, lunch meat sandwiches, coloring, reading books, gatorade, Jeremy's talk radio, naps, chilly weather (50 degrees), two happy girls, and two blessed parents. 

Our sweet Carly was so tired she fell asleep while coloring, still holding onto her purple crayon.

Our precious Emma enjoyed all the food I could give her. Including this delicious candy.

Silly girl, wanted her pillow like that while she read her Curious George book.

We were in Colorado early enough so we could be in the temple when Kellie went through for the first time. Yayy!!! We were so glad that we could be there for her.

This was Carly's best friend all weekend. Shasta! Any chance Carly had, she would ask to go outside to throw the ball for Shasta. And she even got to play with the hose!

Carly was following Shasta around and then Shasta went and sat on the grass.
This is how Carly sat beside her. :)

They were busy watching squirrels in the tree.

Kellie, Jamie, Abby, and I snuck away for a bit and got our nails done for the wedding!

I should have gotten a picture of all four of us while we were sitting beside each other, in these chairs. oh well. Hey Jamie!

Saturday, August 22nd

Wedding Day!!!!

that dress! that bow! those shoes! and that adorable girl!!! love love love.

My cute family ready for the wedding! 

Uncle Talon and Carly got a little nap in before getting to the Temple.

perfect day. perfect Temple!
 (Jeremy and I were sealed here too!!)

photo fail:  I didn't take any pictures of Kellie and Brad! ugh. I will definitely have to steal some. They were so happy and such a cute couple. 

I will say one thing. I have changed my mind as to who I look at during a wedding. During Brad and Kellie's sealing, I wasn't able to see Kellie because the sealer was standing in the way. All I could see was Brad. But the look on his face was priceless. His eyes were glued on his beautiful bride and he could not stop smiling! What a great memory I will have of their sealing. Usually I look at the bride, but this changed my mind. The groom says it all.

On our way into the luncheon. Carly finally got to spend some time with her cousin Tucker. They are two months apart and it is SO fun to watch them interact.

This weekend was a much anticipated one because Carly knows who Tucker is (we watch videos of him often) but since we live so far away we don't get to see them much.
She was so excited to hold his hand.

This is how we got two toddlers through the luncheon. haha. Ipads and the empty room they ran around in. 

Carly and the Temple! 

Poor Emma. She was so so so good and so so so tired.

I asked to take a picture of her. I needed one of just her and her dress.

Four generation picture
Great-Grandma Shirley, Grandpa Jim, Jeremy, Carly & Emma

daddy and his girls

Carly was obsessed with Kellie! It was so darn cute. Any time I couldn't find her during the reception I would look at Kellie's hand and there she was, just holding it and looking up at her.

After church the next day, Carly walked to the car 'talking' on her phone. We asked her who she was talking to, she said 'Kellie!' (At this point Kellie was on her honeymoon and Carly kept asking for her). She sure does love her Aunt Kellie and new Uncle Brad!

We spent our time in Colorado playing wallyball, going on walks to the park, playing outside with Shasta, getting to know cousins (finally meeting Anthon & Sawyer), making pasta salad for the reception, playing volleyball at Jim's work, not sleeping through the night, and enjoying Saturday celebrating with Brad and Kellie! 

Free movie, donuts and sleeping

Friday morning I ventured out and took the girls to a free kids movie AT the movie theater. It was fun! We last a whole 30 minutes. I felt bad because Emma was wiggly and hates being on my lap. I asked Carly if we could go and she said 'yeah!' Little did I know, a huge melt down was about to happen out in the lobby of the movie theater. 

So we came home and enjoyed some donuts.

And watched a show while Emma took a nap. 

Emma loves to rest her head on things. Sometimes she puts her head on the floor while on her belly, and plays with a toy beside her. T

I forgave her for not sleeping through the night. After nursing her she fell asleep on me! This only happens once and a while. But I love when it does happen. 

Emma is 7 months!

Emma is our sweet, smiley, giggly, army crawling baby who is 7 months today!

She loves to eat baby food. I think more than she likes to nurse actually. Carly definitely loved to nurse and wasn't a huge fan of baby food. Emma is quite the opposite. She has enjoyed rice cereal, carrots, squash, green beans, peas, and we just started apple sauce. Right now we feed her twice a day and I nurse her probably 5 times a day. She does really well with veggie straws and her little Gerber puffs. Carly LOVES feeding her these.

Emma has go-go-gadget arms. If something is in sight that she wants, she is stretching her arms as far as she can to get it. And always gets it.

Emma is so smiley and giggly. Emma LOVES Carly and it just melts my heart to see how much they adore each other. They give each other the biggest smiles and the biggest giggles every morning. It's like they missed each other over night. :)

Emma is a expert army crawler. She can get anywhere super fast. Especially if she knows she isn't allowed to have it or if Carly was playing with it and puts it down.

She is starting to go from sitting position to all fours by herself! She gets in that position and either goes down to her belly or stays on her hands and knees and rocks. It is so fun to see this change just in the past few days!

Emma has stopped sleeping through the night. Vacation kind of messed this up! Ugh. But we have found that this girl has a set of lungs and that she can scream for hours if we let her. Some nights I feel she never stops crying. It depends on the night. Sometimes I get up and nurse her and she falls right back to sleep without a peep. Some nights I let her cry because it's the cry that she does when she wakes up just for a few minutes and I know she'll go right back to sleep. Either way, not sleeping through the night has been kicking my butt! I am exhausted. #mommyproblems

We had to buy Emma a new bumper for her crib. When she is screaming in her crib she kicks and ends up with her head right against the side railings. She doesn't stop kicking and so for a little bit she would wake up with welts on her head. :( We had a breathable bumper for Carly and was using it for Emma. But this wasn't doing anything for Emma. She had huge welts and I was done with it. We were hoping she would learn not to go against the crib and fall asleep. But I just bought a new padded bumper and it works great!

Emma still isn't a huge fan of people. She will smile at them if we are the ones holding her. Even for our friends who watch the girls so we can go on dates, she cried and cried for them too. :( Breaks my heart knowing that she cries for so long for other people.

Emma is wearing 6-9 month clothing. And wears a size 3 Target brand diaper. We have switched diapers quite a few times because they both have sensitive skin. Target brand is working great for Emma.

Emma has her ears pierced!! We got them done on her 6 month 'birthday'. I love them. They make her look so girly. I clean them every day and we haven't had any problems with them. She plays with them sometimes but they don't seem to even bother her.

She loves paper. I swiped her mouth the other day because she had something in there. It was a huge wad of what it looked like, colorful paper. Then after I put her down for a nap, I found the children's scriptures on the floor with a huge chunk tore off. ha! She ate Jesus. oops.

 

Emma is a huge fan of the stroller. We have a Graco double stoller. Jeremy has taken them on walks these last few days so I can get a quick nap. He says Emma is so chill the whole time. We went out today to get Carly some boots and shoes for winter and Emma was super chill in her stroller then too! It was Carly that was a basket case. Emma loves being in front and Carly will climb up in that seat so she can be the one looking at us while we push. Or she walks beside and holds on. 

I told Carly that we were going to take some pictures of Emma. Carly sits on the blanket and reaches up ready for Emma to sit with her to get some pictures. haha. She knows how to do this.

pure happiness

I love this blue eyed baby.

On all fours. 

Sitting back up to play with this toy she grabbed!

Go-go-gadget arms