Once there was a Snowman

I was suffering from a little cabin fever after being home most of
the weekend while Officer was working, so today after a storm brought about 4 inches of snow I got out and built a "Big Fwausty" with miss Peanut. Very theraputic for me!

Santa came...

Christmas morning was great the kids slept until 7:30am - and it took Miss Peanut almost 2 hours playing with her stocking goodies before she discovered that there were presents under the tree and that Santa came and brought her a kitchen! Here's her reaction:

And Daddy got a GPS (the clip is just of him searching for it - I figured family might get a laugh, but don't feel like you have to watch it - it's kind of long).

And the little man is growing like crazy and talking up a storm. He's weighing in around 15lbs at 3 months now. What a chubba! I love it, except when he has a rough night and I'm pacing the floor with 15lbs for hours...uh...yah. The rough nights are getting fewer and father between now, and once he gets to sleep he's sleeping about 7-8 hours which is wonderful and Miss Peanut is getting to be such a big helper now that she knows he's here for good. Forgive the awful singing on the video - eh - it's just for him. This is what I just can't get enough of.

As for myself...I'm adjusting, I wish I had more hours in a day, but I'm realizing that no matter how much I do...there is always more tomorrow, so I'm trying to do less.

Catching up...

A picture is worth a thousand words right? So I'm choosing pictures, over writing a lot - and that's what most people would rather see anyway.

I'll start with Miss Peanut's birthday, which happened to fall on Thanksgiving day this year.

I have been putting sponge rollers in her hair now that it's getting long enough and she asks that her hair be "so pwetty" most nights, so for her birthday we wanted her to have so pwetty hair.

And this is the 2 year old I woke up to the next day. Can you sense the terrible two's from this stance. Seriously - we're already getting a taste of them.

We squeezed in a little party with lots of her cousins just before pumpkin pie. I dabbled at making her a cake this year - Mickey Mouse Clubhouse has been a favorite of hers so I went with a toodles cake. I thought it turned out alright.

We gave a Cabbage patch doll and a stroller. She demolished the stroller in days, so we returned it and it has since been replaced with a much sturdier one.

And the Little man spent time just hanging out with his Aunt Mackenzie.

and hanging out with daddy.

Miss Peanut now loves hide and seek - I love the little nose you can see peeking behind the door. Her giggles give her away everytime daddy comes to find her.

And she is still a daddy's girl - and the two of them together is just perfect!

I was so excited to decorate now that I have a mantle this year. I don't know why, but I just love being able to hang stockings there. I have spent many nights up with our little man by the glow of the Christmas lights - it's just so magical to me. I love Christmas time!

First time really playing in the snow! She got to build a snowman - I thought it was in the picture, but it's behind her - it was just a little frosty since we didn't have much snow.

Love the cheeks! And she picked out the boots she is wearing - I gave her a choice between that pair and one other - that is what she picked and she hardly takes them off inside or outside.

We had some friends over and it has been fun to watch our kids becomes friends too!

I found these two sitting on the couch, sharing the bag of chips by the Christmas tree, both with one hand in the bag. By the time I got the camera they had finished the bag, but it was so funny.

And these two handsome kids are about the same size, our little man is just a few ounces heavier and couple months younger. What a chubba!

Miss Peanut is getting to be such a big helper and such a sweet big sister. He has started to grin from ear to ear when he sees her.

See! This just makes me smile from ear to ear too!

Anyway - we're hanging in there - we've had quite a few rough nights with him being colicky, but I think we're on the downhill side of it now. The Holidays have been busy this year with babies and birthdays and family gatherings, but we're enjoying the season! We wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope that you're doing well!

Frosty the Snowman

Frosty has quickly become Miss Peanut's favorite Christmas movie/song this winter and she is just starting to try and sing along with songs. This morning before church we were able to get her to sing a little for the camera. I love it, but it's probably one of those only a mother could love moments. Thanks for sharing it with me. I promise to upload more pictures and video this week...hopefully we'll see how it goes.

Addresses!

I'm sending out Christmas cards soon and I'm realizing that lots of you have moved! Please send me your new address if you would like a Christmas card. Happy Holidays!

I'm in need of some super powers...anyone?

I love my kids...I do and I still want to have more, but it is a never-ending battle for me to decide what really needs to get done. I like order - a plan - schedule - routine - (Miss peanut is a very routine child) and having the little man has thrown all of that entirely out the window. Between callings, church stuff, holidays, birthdays, bills, keeping up with my house, and taking care of husband, kids and occasionally myself, I am feeling stretched - kind of like elasti-girl on the Incredibles. I'm in need of some serious super powers! And I'm blessed to be able to be a stay at home mom - for crying in the rain - or at whatever card commercial comes on. For those of you who have to work - my heart goes out to you!
Trying to find a balance has been really hard because seriously - it's all I can do to just take care of kids and get dressed some days. With Officer working swings, he works most of the night and sleeps a majority of the day, so me having sleepless nights and then trying to function to take care of two during the day has been so exhausting and I feel like I have no patience with my children or myself. And the disorder of my house...anywho so, I decided that I need to stop praying for more patience. Yep, every time I do, I inevitably have several rough days that require more patience than I want to exert and in the end I guess I have more patience, but the process - a little overwhelming this last week. I gotta say - I am just tired of trying to make it seem like I have it all together, cause I definitely don't. People have babies all the time and they manage, but I just can't seem to pull it together. I just have to conclude that all the other moms are trying to make it seem like they have it all together too? I know I will never attain perfection in this life, I know that I will never have trials I will not be able to overcome, and I know I can do hard things, but I didn't expect motherhood to be such a challenge for me - and I don't have school age kids, or teenagers, or missionaries, yet!
Needless to say, lots of things have been neglected this past month, the blog pretty much bottom of the list, so one of these days I'll post some more pictures, but today I just need to send this out there and get it off my chest.
Oh - and any of you awesome nursing moms out there - any great nursing meal plan books or sites? I'm so glad that nursing itself has gone better this time around, but everything I find says don't eat - anything, pretty much it feels like - very frustrating, so please throw some ideas out there for me, because even the littlest things seem to upset this little man's tummy the last week or so.

Happy Halloween

Just a couple of cute pictures of my little monsters. Miss Peanut had lots of costumes to choose from thanks to my talented sister making a Tinkerbell costume for her daughter last year and my mom's huge costume box. In the end she decided to be Tinkerbell and a puppy. We went last night to our ward's trunk-or-treat, but I'm not sure I'll venture out tonight because Officer is working.



She just laughed at herself when I put her in front of a mirror, it was so funny. And then when she realized she had a tail she kept trying to "chase" it. At the Trunk or treat there was another little boy her age dressed in a very similar costume. This little boys brother came up to miss peanut (thinking it was his brother) and started dragging her away by her tail - it was pretty funny to watch.




And the little guy - just chillin'. I was getting Miss Peanut ready for bed and he was squirming like crazy and this is were he settled in. Too cute - he has been so much fun!

Such a blessing

We had the chance to bless our little man (blog name will be decided soon) last week while Officer's parents were still here visiting. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it there - it's so wonderful to have so many family and friends close by for occasions like these. I wanted miss peanut to have a special dress for the day, but she was out of it so fast after church that we didn't get a picture of our new family of 4 together, but we did get Officer and his dad with our little man.

My very talented sister took Pictures of Little Man a couple weeks ago. I'm finally posting the link.
Hawkley Photography

We're doing well, just not doing much for now, but we'll be blessing the little man this weekend so I'm sure I'll post more next week.

Our little Man has arrived - just a little early.

Early Sunday morning we had a little surprise and my water broke around 2:00am. We stayed at home until about 7:30am and packed bags for me a Miss Peanut (she was able to go spend a couple days at Grandma's house until we got home). I really have planned that I would have to be induced again so I had neglected to pack anything up until that point. Once we got to the hospital everything went so quickly and smoothly, we were so glad to have great labor and delivery nurses, and before we knew it he was here! He was born at 3:48pm October 4, 2009. He weighed in at 7lb 5 oz and was 20 inches long. Of course you can see from the pictures that he has lots of jet black hair that is just so cute! We are just thrilled to have him here!


We spent that night at the hospital, and we were able to Come home the next evening and now we're just adjusting to life with 2 little ones. Miss Peanut really has done well with all the changes, but it's definately going to be an adjustment. She loves to count baby brother's eyes, fingers, ears, nose. She just hasn't quite gotten the fact that he is a real baby and not like her doll babies. Here's some pictures of their first introduction, and some other cute ones.

My sister was able to come take some pictures this evening and I'm so excited to see them - I'll post a link when they're ready. Anyway - it's been a wonderful week. We have been so blessed to have this little man in our family. I couldn't wrap my head around how I would love another child the same as Miss Lydia, but it just happens and your heart just grows. I'm so blessed to have a beautiful little family!

keeping busy

I've kind of been nesting this last month or so...I don't know what the deal is. I think I'm just trying to tie up any and all loose ends because this baby will be here and then I'll blink and the holidays will just be crazy busy after that. So I'm pretty much planning for my world to just stop this next month, so that I can just enjoy this new little man while he's so teeny - I hope he's relatively teeny anyway.

Here's some of what we've been doing:

• We finished up most of the yard work/patio stuff. Found some patio furniture on craigslist! Gotta love it!
  
  


• I have cleaned out every closet in my house


• Sorted through all of the stuff in our garage and found plenty of things to sell or donate.


• Deep cleaned every room in my house


• Had the carpets cleaned - so nice to not do it myself.


• Restocked most of my pantry/shelves/closets with things I will probably be needing, so that I don't have to make those trips to the store when I'm sleep deprived and find that when I get there I've forgotten why I went in the first place.


• Officer built me shelves in our closet so that I have places for all my craft stuff. He's been really great to help me finish lots of little projects without too many crazy pregnant woman comments ;)
  


• Finally finished reupholstering a glider in the nursery

• Bonus - Officer also built a mantel for our Fireplace - I love it - I've wanted one for so long!

• Miss peanut and our new little man will be sharing a room for a while which I tried to keep fairly generic, so I freaked out that I needed more boyish stuff in the room and made two quilts.

My sister made one For Miss Peanut like:

and I copied her genius and came up with this: of course mine has plenty of imperfections, but for my first "involved" quilt I thought I did alright.

• I crocheted several hats for various things; one for our little man to wear at the hospital. It's camo because Officer is really hoping to go hunting the week I'm due. We'll see what happens, but we had to add camo to something. (It's being modeled by Miss Peanut's baby)

• I've been working on homemade Christmas projects - no pictures of them for now or they wouldn't be a surprise, but they have been lots of work and I'm determined to get them done in the next week or so and then most of Christmas is out of the way. With the exception of shopping for officer and getting a stocking for our new little man.
  
• I think I'm just about to the end of my to do list...finally. Officer's parent will be here next weekend and they'll be here until we bless this little man on October 25th (totally bugging me that I call him little man because we still don't have a name yet - that is the top of the to do list). My doctor said he would induce me the week of October 12th, so as long as all goes we'll we wanted to bless him while Officer's parents are in town.

Miss Peanut has been:

• Talking up a storm - you would not believe the vocabulary of this chick! It is such a blessing though because she can tell me what she needs, wants, whatever. She knows most of her alphabet and can count to 13. She is also learning to sing a little - or at least repeat the words or fill in where we pause - so cute.
  
• She's totally getting her own sense of humor which we just love - It's so hard to keep from laughing sometimes when we probably shouldn't be encouraging her.


• Loves to be a pirate! I need to get that on video for the full affect, but it's hilarious!


• Loves Disney CARS, Curious George, Superwhy, and little Einsteins. Then she picked up this thing for Elmo when she was at my mom's house.


• Growing like crazy - we measured her a week or so ago because she has been waking up at night saying oweeee my wegs (legs). Sure enough - had to be growing pain - she's grown 3 inches since may. She is 35 inches tall now and hasn't gained any weight, so she is tall and skinny like her daddy.


• She now has her 2 year old molar - they were brutal.


• She can recognize and name most of her cousins/aunts/uncles. We had pictures taken this summer with everyone and I put together a little book for her to look through with all the pictures. She has over 30 cousins, plus their parents and lots of grandparents and she has amazed us by naming them all. Most people would probably say I should try something like state capitals or nations, presidents etc, but I feel like family is more important and I don't really want to be one of the parents that pushes their kids so hard in school. They're already pushed way more than I was (it's crazy what my nieces and nephew have for homework!).
• I can't believe that she will be 2 in November! Her birthday is actually on Thanksgiving Day this year, what to do about that?

So anyway, there you have it. We're still here, just been a little preoccupied. We're so excited for this little man to get here - please feel free to toss out any names that you like/love whatever, I could use some extra help!