Sunday, March 15, 2015

Brooklynn is 23 Months and Madison 4 Months.

     It's so hard to really believe that Brooklynn will be two years old next month!!  The days seem to pass by slowly sometimes, but the weeks, months, and years are flying by.  This is one of my favorite stages so far.  She is SO SO sweet and SO hilariously funny!  She LOVES helping me do pretty much everything, especially helping with Madison and anything she can in the kitchen.  She now pushes a kitchen chair all over the kitchen to "help" whoever is in there, and she doesn't seem to care who or what is in her way=)  She has also started to want to do things herself, which is really fun for me!(sense the sarcasm)  She'll say "I do it, I do it!!!" and wants to get dressed herself,(which she can't really do yet, but I'll say"ok you can do it" and then I'll sneakily try and help her) put her own socks and shoes on(which she can't do yet either) and she wants to do her own hair, among many other things.  There are many times a day where I hear her say with a lot of emotion and determination "I do it, I do it!!"  I just have to take a deep breath and step back and let her attempt it.
     We are trying to break her of her binki, except for when she sleeps,  so we've been having her put them in a cute little bowl every morning and after naps.  She loves collecting them all, and then I'll lift her up so she can reach the shelf in her closet where we keep the bowl.  She really got attached to them, and would pretty much want to hold one in her mouth almost all the time, and she'd just end up drooling all over our furniture and needed to have one everywhere we went.  It's overdue, but I wasn't ready to take it from her until now with all the new changes with having Madison join our family.  I felt like we rocked Brooklynn's world enough.  Now she, and we, couldn't imagine our family without Madison, and it's time to rid ourselves of the binki=)
     She is big enough now where I can open the car door for her, and she can climb up into her carseat by herself while I'm getting Madison situated.  That has been nice.  She is learning so many new things, it's so fun to watch her.  She's learned to count to ten, and a lot of times when I give her a treat, like an m&m or something, I'll say"ok, you can have two and that's it" and then when she's finished the two she'll say "seven, eight, nine, ten" which means she just wants like seven more.   So funny!
     She LOVES going to church now!  She asks several times during the week if we can go to church, and whenever we drive past it during the week she gets super excited and yells "Church!!"  She'll just walk right into nursery without any problems now.  She loves "color time, bubble time, snack time, singing time, and play time" as she says it.  I'm so grateful that she loves being in there now.  She'll always run to me so excited after church to show me the picture she colored that day. It's so fun to see and hear about the new things she's learning.  The other day she started twirling around on the carpet and was singing "ashes, ashes" so I started singing Ring Around The Rosie, and she got THE biggest smile on her face!  I have never taught her that, so I know it's something she learned in nursery.  Same with "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!"  She must have just learned that too.  She LOVES when I sing her the new songs she's learned.  She'll shout "ALL RIGHT" instead of Hooray when I sing "If you're happy and you know it shout hooray!" and it's so adorable!  I love that she loves to learn and I love watching her put the things she's learning into practice.  Last week in sacrament meeting she even opened the hymn book during the opening hymn and acted like she was following along. I had to chuckle when she closed it before we started the final verse, then when she realized it wasn't over she opened it back up like "whoops, it's not over yet."  She is so cute!  I have been told multiple times by ladies with kids Brooklynn's age, that she talks A LOT for her age.  It's funny because Joe and I joke that we tried getting her to talk for so long, and now we can't get her to ever be quiet.  She's always talking!
     When I get ready, she's right by my side.  Sometimes it makes me want to scream because everywhere I turn, she's right there and in to everything, but most of the time she does okay.  When  I get out of the shower she'll get out my deodorant, toothpaste and face creams and say "Here you go mommy."   Then when I'm doing my makeup she's right there beside me using my brushes and makeup blender on her face, like she's doing her makeup.  It really is so cute!  She likes to open my lip glosses and put some on.  She'll grab one and say "lips, lips!"    Sometimes she gets into my eyeshadows and makes a mess, but I've learned to keep one eye on what I'm doing, and one eye on her.
     She loves Elmo still.  She'll watch Elmo's World from Sesame Street, but she just watches that part.  She won't watch the entire episode.  She has some Elmo books that she's obsessed with.  The latest craze is "Using the Bathroom" book that talks about using the big potty and taking baths and brushing teeth and stuff.  She wants to read it ALL THE TIME.  And she still loves "Llama llama Share" and usually has to have that read to her at least once a day.  We bought her a little book called "My first Book of Mormon Stories, and Joe will read from it every night.  If we get busy and forget she'll always remember and say "Scriptures! Scriptures!"  She also points out in several of the stories that the men or boys are "nakies" because they don't have shirts on.  Sometimes she gets so stuck on that, that I don't think she hears much of the story that night, but at least we are attempting it every day with her. =) She also loves Family Home Evening.  We've been teaching her out of the Gospel Principles book for the last several lessons, and she loves just flipping through and looking at the pictures.   She has also started to love saying the prayer, which completely melts my heart.  One night she said the opening prayer for family home evening, and hearing her sweet little voice talking to Heavenly Father brought the sweetest spirit into our home.  She loves doing Ring Around The Rosie(which she calls "Ashes ashes"  and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes after the lesson.
     Last week she helped me make chocolate chip cookies, and she colored an Elmo picture for her best friend Evan.  He loves Elmo too!  Evan got Shingles a couple weeks ago and was really sick.  When we got the okay that he was doing better and wasn't contagious anymore, she was so excited to go see him and take him a treat.  She has talked about it all week.  She'll say "cookies for Evan. Picture"  It was so sweet watching her hand him the plate of cookies.  I just love my sweet girl.
     She's always trying to help with Madison.  If I'm busy and Madison starts crying of fussing, Brooklynn is the first to try to attend to her.  She'll help her get her binki in, or show her a cartoon video on the phone, or take her a toy.  She loves her little sister.  She's always wanting to hug, hold her, or give her kisses.  She also thinks is so fun to take a bath with her every night.  I'll put Madison's tub in our big bathtub, and then fill up our tub a little bit and put Brooklynn in at the same time I bathe Madison.  They both LOVE bath time so much!  Brooklynn has started taking off her own diaper at night before she gets into the tub.  Luckily she doesn't do it during the day.  That could be a nightmare come to fruition to find that.=)  She will also come and tell me when she's poopy now.
     She LOVES the water, and would really play in it anytime.  She loves turning on the tub and "washing her hands" whenever she gets anything on them, or after she helps put mousse in her hair.  She'll push the chair over to the sink in the kitchen and stand there and wash her hands or "wash Madison's bottles" or help with rinsing the dishes, just so she can play in the water.  She always wants to go "swim with daddy" as she says it.  There's a little rec center in Angleton that we've been taking her to because it's pretty cheap, there's a lazy river, a fun kids area, and it's never really super crowded.  She LOVES that!  If you ask her during the week what she wants to do, she'll usually always say "swim with daddy."  It was warm yesterday, so Joe blew up this blow up pool I bought on clearance at the end of the summer, and stuck her little slide in it so she would slide down right into the pool.  The child was absolutely in heaven!  She's going to be SO excited tomorrow when I pull it out again for her.  I could also send her outside with a big plastic cup full of ice and she would play with that for a long while too.  She's so funny!
     Every day when Joe gets home Bookie usually screams "Daddy!" and runs to him and then he'll take her in our room and they wrestle for a few minutes before dinner.  He'll also read to her every night before bed.  He's taught her how to do big things at the park, and she can climb up on things on her own now.  Sometimes I think I hold her back because I don't feel like she's ready for things, but Joe just teaches her how to do them and then lets her go for it.  Sometimes it results in some bumps and bruises but she'll usually get up and try again.
     So that I don't forget them, some other things that Brooklynn says, does, or is loving right now are:
"Daddy tooted", "Thank you VERY much,"( I wondered where she got that from and then realized I say it a lot!) Joe will "burp" her after she drinks her milk before bed, like I burp Madison, and she'll fake this huge burp and then say "Excuse Me." She loves the Children's Museum and going to see the baby chicks before we leave.  She's just gotten interested in Mini Mouse because she found this Mini Mouse doll that Serena and the girls gave her that sings "hot dog, hot dog," and then I put the show on tv the other day and she smiled so big when they sang the same song.  She loves doing airplane after I finish my exercises and am stretching.  She loves when she sees school buses on the road when we are out and about, because she loves watching "wheels on the bus" on youtube.   She loves reading "Elmo Potty, Elmo Big Bed, Llama Llama Share.  She loves watching nursery rhyms on my phone, or watching UP.

Madison is already 4 Months Old!  I just can't believe how quickly she's changing and growing.  I just want to keep her my tiny little baby for much longer.  It seems like just yesterday Brooklynn was that small, and now she barely fits in my arms.  I'm just trying to cherish every moment I can.  Things are different with two kids.  With Brooklynn, I could attend to her every need when she was Madison's age.  Now I am juggling the needs of two kids, and sometimes that means that one is upset and crying while I'm attending to the other.  I've kind of gotten things down now though, and try not to overschedule myself, because that's when things get really stressful.  If I can just play off of the girls and what their needs are, our days usually run smoothly.  I try to get them out of the house at least once a day, and I try to always do something that's fun for them(mostly Brooklynn at this age) at least once a day.  Whether that's the Children's Museum, the Aquarium, the park, going to Pets Mart to look at the fish and birds, or going to Bounce Town to let her play, or even riding on the merry go round at the grocery store,  I find that everyone is happier when she gets to do something fun for herself out of the house once a day.  Sometimes it doesn't happen every day, but I try hard.
     Madison's little personality is really coming out, and she is SO fun!  She's still sleeping with me, and I love waking up to her jibber jabbering in the morning.  She is THE MOST smiley little baby ever.  All you have to do is smile at her and she will give you a huge smile right back.  She has also started laughing every now and then, and it is absolutely the sweetest sound.  Every now and then if you catch her at the right time and say something she thinks is funny, or tickle her just right, she just lets out the cutest little laugh.  I can't wait until I get to hear it more often.  She's such a good baby.  She's happy unless she's hungry, tired, or poopy.  I feel like I know her needs so much better than I did with Brooklynn.  Obviously I have gotten better with age and practice, and now know how to take care of children better=)  Madison will usually eat about every 3 hours or so during the day, and take little 30 minute naps every 2-3 hours or so.  She used to sleep for hours, but now she just doesn't do that anymore.  She sleeps really well at night though, so I can't complain.  I'll usually feed her right before I go to bed, sometime around 9 or 10, and then lately she's been sleeping all the way until about 6 or 7!  Hallelujah!!  This momma needs my sleep!  If she does wake up randomly at night I can just give her her binki and she'll go back to sleep.  She's such a good baby, and I feel super blessed!
     She absolutely LOVES bath time.  She's started flapping her arms and kicking now when I put her in the water.  She hasn't really ever cried except for her very first bath at the hospital.  I'm so glad she loves the water, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she does at the pool this summer.
     She has started grasping on to things.  She has a little ball she loves to play with, or she'll grab her blanket and just suck on it, and when I pick her up from her swing she's usually got a toy or her blanket with her.  She's pulling my hair now or holding on tight to my finger or my shirt.  Sometimes if she's unhappy in the car, I can just reach my hand back and she'll grab hold of my finger and calm down a little bit.  She hasn't been a big fan of the car lately.  I think it's mostly being strapped in to her carseat, and then since she doesn't nap super well anymore, she's usually tired when we try to go somewhere in the afternoon.  I can't just sit home all day though and let her nap when she decides she wants to, so a lot of the times she just has to nap in the car or wherever I take Bookie that day.
  She likes to suck on things all the time now.  Usually it's her own fist, or her blanket, or binki, or sometimes the back of my hand.  She's also super drooly now, so I feel like she's totally teething.  I can't feel anything yet though.  I think I kinda sorta feel some teeth coming in on the bottom, but nothing definite yet.
     She loves having her diaper changed.  It's the funniest thing!  When I unsnap her jammies, or take off her pants, she just kicks and gets the biggest smile!  She just melts my heart so many times throughout the day.  She can also get super upset and just fuss and do this mad yell/scream until I swear I am going to go crazy.  I feel like I don't get much done in the day, but it's probably more than I think.  If I can keep up on the laundry, keep the fridge stocked, and get dinner on the table, I feel like I'm doing pretty well!  Sometimes I feel like I did was feed, change, and rock kids to sleep, but then I think about how much I longed to be a mom for so long, and I have to pause and give thanks for the opportunity I have been given.  Being a mom is BY FAR the absolute hardest and most selfless thing I have ever done.  There are days that I just want to sit in a quiet, dark room, all by myself, but that's not really an option.  I have had several meltdowns to Joe and he's been really good about helping me to get back on track.  Sometimes I just need a good cry to relieve the stress that I feel.  And I have felt a lot better since I started working out on a regular basis.  He'll also watch the girls every Saturday for about and hour and a half so that I can get away and go to the gym by myself, and I've been able to also sneak away for a pedicure and some time to just relax.  I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful husband.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

21 and 2 Months

It's so hard to believe that our sweet Madison is already 2 months old now!  Time has just flown by since she joined our family.  Well, time has really flown by since Brooklynn joined our family too.  I guess watching them grow and change so much in such a short period of time really makes you stop and realize how quickly life passes by.

Brooklynn will be 21 months in just a few days and in my opinion she is at one of the most fun stages. She talks my ear off all day, loves to play peek-a-boo, she can tell me what she wants for lunch and breakfast(almost every time I ask what she wants for breakfast she says "Cheetos" with a big smile.  She knows I'll say "Noooo, we don't eat Cheetos for breakfast!" and she thinks it's funny.  She seems to have a small obsession with Cheetos, even though she doesn't really even get them very often.) She loves greek yogurt, and eggs toast and sausage.  She loves pretty much any fruit, and is obsessed with canned green beans. She also LOVES mexican food.  When we go to a restaurant, she has to have her own little bowl of salsa and chips, and she pretty much drinks the stuff.  She's also a huge fan of beans, especially refried beans.

 She loves when she hears her daddy come in from work.  She'll say "Daddy?!" and take off running into his arms.  He has told me that that is his favorite part of the day.  They always horse around between dinner and bed time.  She loves when he reads her stories, or gives her a ride on "Doggy"-her big stuffed animal, or tickles her till she's about to puke.  Their bond has grown even stronger since Madison joined our family, because I have to be the one to take care of Madison a lot, so Joe is responsible for Brooklynn.

She loves to color and has taken a crayon to our entertainment center and the blinds so far.  Luckily we were able to get it off.  She loves "bubbies" and playing outside.  I'll leave the back door open while she plays outside and she's absolutely in heaven and plays out there by herself for quite a while.  She LOVES playing at the park, and will go down any slide now.  She's not really afraid of heights or anything on the "big kid" side of the park.  It's been so fun to watch her learn how to do new things there.  It's made me realize my little girl isn't really a baby anymore.  She's growing up!

She's still obsessed with Elmo.  Ever since Bob and Sharon hosted the Christmas party in 2013 and had Santa come by and give the kids books, and she got an Elmo one, she has been obsessed with him!  She loves to watch Elmo's World on Sesame Street and that's pretty much all she'll watch from the show, so I just have to fast forward it to that part.  She has a couple Elmo dolls that she keeps close by, and one stays in the car so he can always go places with us.  The grocery store we shop at has big Elmo Pinatas and she loves when we go there!  It's funny because when we go to the store she always seems to see something with Elmo on it.  Whether it's a balloon or a snack bowl, or a sandwich container.  So funny!  She also loves to ride the little merry go round at Food Town.  That's the highlight of her day when we go there!  I love seeing her face light up and the biggest smile ever cross her face.

Brooklynn is the best big sister.  She has never had any sort of jealousy issues towards Madison.  She has never intentionally tried to hurt her, or been rude to her at all.  She loves her so much!  If I go get her out of bed in the morning without Madison in my arms, she always says "Baby?!"  If I do have Madison with me, she'll get a big smile on her face and point and say "Madison!!"

She is the best little helper and will bring me a diaper and wipes and she always wants to climb up on the bed while I change Madison's diaper.  When Madison is crying or even if she's not, but she sees her binki has fallen out, she always tries to put it back in for her.  If Madison is crying then Brooklynn always says "Baby Sad?"  She is so cute!  She loves rubbing Madison's head, and she talks to her in a high baby talk voice that is absolutely adorable.  She'll come up to me when I'm holding Madison and say "hold it" and that means she wants to hold her.  She'll give her big open mouth kisses on her head, and she says "I love Madison."  Melts my heart every time.  Last night I gave them both a bath in my big bathtub(Madison was on her little bath mat) and Brooklynn thought it was the coolest thing ever to have her little sister in the bathtub with her.  I'm so glad that they love each other so much!   The way they look at each other is just the sweetest.  I hope that they will always have a strong bond and be close throughout their lives.

I have been letting Brooklynn help me make dinner at night or dessert on the weekends, and she has gotten so excited about it!  We'll pull over a chair from the kitchen table for her to stand on, and she'll help with whatever she can!  Last night we made Butternut Squash Soup and she loved helping me!  When dinner time rolls around and I ask if she wants to come help me make dinner, she runs over as fast as she can and starts pushing the chair up to the counter.  It's been a time for us to bond, and I've seen her love of being in the kitchen grow just over the past several weeks.  She loves to help with anything and everything she can.

She still says "Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy" when she is sad or frustrated.  Last week I picked her up from nursery and she had some tears in her eyes and was saying it.  They said she had just been anxiously waiting for one of us to pick her up.  So funny!

When we need to clean up her toys, or any other mess she's made I will tell her it's time to clean up and start singing "Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere!  Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share." and she chimes right in singing "neam up, neam up"  it's too cute!

Madison has been an angel baby.  I really am so blessed.  The hardest part has probably been that she won't sleep in the bassinet.  She will always wake up just minutes after I put her down.  So, I have been  sleeping downstairs in our room with her in our bed, on Joe's side between two pillows so that she's safe, and Joe has been sleeping upstairs in the guest bed so that he isn't awakened at night and can get the rest he needs to be able to get up and go to work everyday and then come home and help with the kids.  It's what works for us.  She's been waking up every 4 hours or so at night, but she'll go right back to sleep after.  I'm still nursing and doing a bottle.  It takes about 45 minutes per feeding, which can be long.  She's smiling a lot now, and she's just the happiest little baby.  She's loving bath time, and loves to sleep in her swing during the day.  I just love holding her close and just trying to breathe and soak her in.  I know from having Brooklynn, how quickly this stage will pass by, and I want nothing more than to be able to just freeze her this little for a while.  I love that she'll snuggle up on me, that she's so little, and that she smells so good!  I just can't get enough of her.  I think often about the days I had with Brooklynn when she was this age, and how I could just sit and hold her all day long.  I was told to cherish those days because I would never get to do that with my other kids, and I feel like I did cherish them.  It is very true.  I can't do that with Madison.  There is always something to be done having two kids.  I do cherish the time that I have holding Madison every night though after Brooklynn has gone to bed.  That is my time to just sit and snuggle her, along with when Brooklynn naps during the day.  I am just crazy about this little girl, and I couldn't imagine my life without her now.  We all love her so much!



Well, we have made it beyond the 6 week mark!  I honestly can't believe it's gone by so quickly.  There were some days back in the beginning where it seemed like I was watching the clock tick minute by minute, just trying to survive until Joe got home from work.  I definitely had some emotional breakdowns during the first several weeks.  The tiredness, and learning how to juggle two children and try and meet all of their needs was SO hard!!  I broke down the day after we brought Madison home and my mom and Joe were even home with me!  Brooklynn was being so clingy and needy while we were doing Madison's photo shoot, and then the rest of the day it seems like she was being difficult.  I just collapsed in a heap on the couch and broke down.  It took 3 of us adults to care for her that day to meet her needs and try and keep her happy, and the thought of having to do it all by myself in just a couple of days when my mom was gone and Joe was at work was just too overwhelming.
  The next day was so nice, my mom took Brooklynn to the park for a while and I was able to sleep while Madison slept.  My mom was so helpful and I couldn't bare the thought of her leaving.
   I cried really hard when I dropped her off at the airport the next morning.  Everything seemed SO much harder now that I had another child to care for.  The combination of little sleep, and added responsibilities was enough to make me feel like I wanted to just crawl in a hole.  Surprisingly though, when I got home after dropping my mom off, I told myself "Ok, it's just you and these girls now for the rest of the day, and you can do this!"  We survived the day until Joe got home,  just fine.  I didn't get much else done that day, and I'm almost certain we had leftovers for dinner, but I survived, WE survived.
  Over the next days, weeks, and months, I have had several break downs, and several moments of thinking "Heavenly Father, please help me, I can't do this by myself!"  My patience has been tried more than it ever has in my entire life and I have questioned our decision to have kids so close together, on numerous occasions, but at the end of the day there is nothing that gives my life more meaning and satisfaction than caring for these two sweet girls.  A day of frustration and tears from listening to one child cry while I met the needs of the other, or vice versa, was soothed with a simple hug and an "I love you mommy" or a sleepy grin from Madison.  Things will hopefully get easier as I continue to adjust to having two children.