something new

Saturday night, I did something I've never done before.

I went to a movie BY MYSELF. You know, like the weirdies do. I worked at a movie theater for a few years in high school  and a couple summers after that in collage. I've seen the sorts of lone movie goers that are out there. So I've always been afraid to do it- I've always thought it was weird. And well, it is.

BUT.

I'm so glad I did it! I was dying to see les miserables. I've read the book and am in love with the story. It's just beautiful. And epic. And heart-wrenching.
So I've been bugging Josh about how I HAD to go see it.
And Saturday he was like, "you should just go after the kids are in bed". Uh, good one Josh... that would be sooooo weird. I'm not THAT desperate.
Then, after the kids were in bed, he told me again that I should go. Then I thought about sitting in the theater watching that powerful, beautiful story. And I went. And it was really fun. This mama doesn't get a ton of alone time, (what mama does?) and I was relishing it.

I would totally do it again, for a movie I REALLY wanted to see. (Although I would still hope I didn't see anyone I knew.)

So worth it.

Go do something you've been too scared to do. 

grandparent weekend and Christmas day

The weekend before Christmas my wonderful parents came to visit. They are the nicest, funnest people you'll ever meet. I love how they love me, love each other, and especially how they love those kiddies of mine. We had a blast with them.

Highlights included swimming in their hotel pool (white trash style for me...oh yeah...), and an early Christmas gift extravaganza.

'

This was actually Morgan (and Pearl's) very first time in a real pool! Morgan had only been in kiddie pools before. He took a few minutes to warm up to it, then was loving it. 

On to the grandparent gift extravaganza.

The boy was in heaven. That red and yellow car is his dream come true. As soon as grandpa put the body of the car on the ground, Morgan grabbed the steering wheel and jumped in. He knew right where the steering wheel went. Waiting for grandpa to put it all together was probably the hardest thing he's ever had to do in his life. As you can see, it is now used for a variety of activities, including reading and eating snacks. 

There were other car toys involved as well and Morgan was pretty much going nuts. Little did he know it was only the beginning...

Pearl was also a lucky lady, though she didn't quite know what was going on. She got a darling new outfit. That always makes a mama happy!

Ok, fast forward to Christmas Eve night. 

Here's the set up. Oh yeah. 

Ok, now it's Christmas morning. 

Morgan woke up grumpy... Here he is actually looking at the awesome stuff in the room for the first time...

I love how he's just realizing all the coolness going on in the room.

Needless to say, it was a fun day. 

I know there wasn't much of Pearl in here... we got her some teething cookies and yogurt in her stocking, and Uncle Eric got her an awesome toy. And... that's about it. She was a happy camper though. She mainly enjoys watching Morgan's antics.

Ha, sorry... but I just had to include that first one. Of course when she finally flashes a great smile she spits up big time. Classic. And gross... I have no sense of whats appropriate anymore, sorry. 

Anyways I love my family and I love Christmas and what it's really all about.

Thanks to everyone who made ours so great. You know who you are!

We hope you had a lovely one too. 

feelin' the festive

This year, towards the beginning of the Christmas season, I was having a little bit of a hard time feeling the excitement and anticipation that usually comes with this time of year.

 I think I was just a feeling a little burnt out. Can I just put out there that having two kids is like... twice as crazy as having one? Not that having one isn't work- it IS!- but I think I was STILL getting used to getting in the swing of things with both kiddies. I'm probably just slow.
(It's gotten a lot better.)
I was also feeling a lot of pressure about this Christmas because Morgan knows more of what's going on and this Christmas had the potential to be a huge, epically fun deal for him. And it was all on me! Which is a fun thing- to be able to plan, and think about what he would like the most- but for some reason I was getting a little overwhelmed.
I also wanted to sew some gifts for my family and the order just seemed so tall.

Josh was so cute and was really excited about Christmas so he really helped me get in a festive mood. We listened to Christmas music A LOT, which really helped. Especially the ones about Christ. ("O Holy Night" is my absolute favorite, in case you were wondering.) We also budgeted for a few Christmas decorations- and that really helped too. That hubs of mine is always trying to find ways to make life better for me. Oh, that man. I love him. He's cute too. Just saying.

We also set aside a whole day to go out do fun Christmasy things. It was a couple Saturdays ago and the plan was to go see some reindeer (at Thanksgiving Point), go to the new mall in Salt Lake to see Santa, eat there, go to temple square, and then drive through the "festival of lights" in Spanish Fork.

Soooo the day came and it was basically a blizzard outside. We made it to the reindeer but decided that the drive to Salt Lake was a little too risky.

(the snow doesn't look bad at all in these pictures but it was getting foggy and was supposed to snow a lot more...)

It all worked out though- we went to a mall closer by, ate at an awesome local burger joint, and went to the festival of lights. It was great to get out and do some festive things and be able to experience Morgan's excitement and teach him about everything he sees. 

We had talked up Santa a lot and have been reading Christmas books but he was just not ready to meet the man... 

Poor kid. 

Feeling of festiveness hit full force in the following couple of weeks and I was able to get everything done I wanted AND sit back and enjoy the season. Success!

boogers.

And lots of them lately.

I'm so sick of the sicknesses up in here! Yuck. The worst is the coughing. Josh and I are both hacking up our lungs lately. Morgan has had cold symptoms for a couple weeks now, and he had a couple days last week of a high fever. I took him in and found out he had an ear infection. He is doing SO much better after a few days of antibiotics. Now he is a happy wild little boy instead of a grumpy wild little boy and that makes things so much more fun.

The day after I took Morgan to the doctor I got to thinking Pearl's symptoms seemed a lot like Morgans so I got worried she had an ear infection and took her in the next day. They probably think I'm a hypochondriac. For my kids. Luckily they're really nice there and I really like the doctor. Turns out Pearl has croup, which she has actually had before. We basically just have to run a humidifier and work on getting all those boogies out of her cute little nose.

Both kiddies are doing a lot better now, which makes me happy. I was the last one to get the cold though and mines at its worst right now. I've got the sore throat thing going on and totally sound like a man right now.

I don't think I've blogged yet about how crazy Morgan has been about sleeping this past month. Luckily he is doing SO much better now- but he was sure being ridiculous about naps and bedtime before. Naps were always worse. It was taking him about two hours everyday to fall asleeep... oy. He would just mess with eeeeverything in his room then fall asleep in a corner. Or in a dresser drawer. Or his the bottom of his shelf where his laundry basket should be. After employing many, many methods to end the madness I found it best not to go in there at all. I just resisted the urge, no matter how crazy things sounded in there and waited for him to fall asleep wherever. I then went in and moved my cute sleeping boy to his bed. He's doing way, way, better now! Hallelujah.

mallows, mirrors, and more.

I've been trying to take more video. They are so much fun to look back on- I took some of Morgan as a little baby, but I wish I had take more. So I've been doing pretty good with miss Pearly. I have various ones of her just laying there and I love them.

Here's some recent ones.

I came in the kitchen to find this scene. I thought it was hilarious how Morgan was stuffing his face with the marshmallows. It's hard to be stern with this guy sometimes... he's so friggin cute.

Here's the lady enjoying seeing herself.

And here's Morgan the night we put up the tree. I wish I would have recorded when he first saw it with the light off. He was so amazed;- "Lights! Yellow lights!" It was so cute.

check-in with the girly.

Our Pearl grew up a little today. I know she does every day... because that's how time works... but she seems older today, ya know? Do any of you other mommas have days like that? Where you're just like holy crap, look at this kid! And you get scared... because you realize in no time they will be all grown up. But at the same time watching the growth and learning is the most fun and rewarding thing about parenting. It's the greatest thing in the world to see those personalities develop. And Pearl is starting to show hers more and more! More smiles and real giggles, more facial expressions. Mmm. She is so stinking cute. I want to kiss those yummy cheeks till I die.

Moms are so weird.

Anyways... she is four months now. I know, right? SO fast.

At her appointment she was just under 13 lbs ( 24th percentile), 24.75 inches long (66th percentile), and her cute noggin is 15.5 inches around (50th percentile). She's kind of a lightweight. But she had a little growth spurt lengthwise. The doc said babies often grow upwards then outwards so hopefully she'll be doing the outwards thing now and put some pounds on.

Are stats boring? I don't even know anymore.

I'm excited to start some rice cereal this week. I'd like to give her some before bed so she can hopefully sleep longer. I havent slept a six hour stint in over four months. That's a long time. Just sayin'. A lady could use some real sleepage now and again. She's good about going back to sleep after she eats, she just still likes to have long feedings in the middle of the night. Maybe she feels more relaxed at night because her brother isn't being his loud, crazy self; I don't know.
Man I love those two together though. I think my favorite moment of the week was a couple days ago when they just were looking at each other and cracking up. Pearl's laugh sounds just like Morgan's, I love it so much.

Oh, and my other favorite moment was when Josh was offered a promotion at work! Oh yeah! That's my man. Our first salary and benefits job so it's kind of a milestone. But mainly we're excited because Josh loves where he works so much. I'm so happy he's getting recognized for his mad skills.

halloweeness.

We'll start off with this treat. The boy being scary. Or "freaky" as we call it. Just to get you in the spooky mood. 

Of course when I started filming him he only did it for about ten more seconds but at least I caught some of it. And this must have been on a potty training day... I now notice the lack of pants. Oh well. Aannnyways, he often just randomly busts out that crazy growl and hunched over walk and then says "fweaky Morgan". I love his craziness.

This year for our Halloween costumes I really wanted to have a family theme going on. I finally decided on little red riding hood- big bad wolf for the boy, little red riding hood for the lady. It would work out perfectly for Josh and I too- the transformation for Josh to be a lumberjack would be so very minimal. And I already have granny-esque taste in some ways so that could work out great. But... Josh and I are lame and didn't really have the gumption to do it after getting the kiddos ready.

Our first festivity was going to be a trunk-or-treat at the local grocery store with our good friends. We got the kids dressed up, took some pics- which I was eager to do since it was the first time the kiddies were dressed up together- and were on our way.

Their cuteness in those costumes was killing me!

Lets finish this story though. We got to the grocery store and it was a madhouse!! The line to get to the "trunks" wrapped all the way around the store and didn't seem to be moving very fast. We opted out. Luckily our kids weren't quite old enough to know the difference. 

The boy just had fun running around in his costume. He kept yelling, "hurry, hurry"! When we walked to the line then back to the car.

On actual Halloween night, we took the kiddies trick-or-treating. Here's Morgan getting pumped up, and another look at our cute little red riding hood too.

We actually ended up having Pearly stay in the car with Josh... but Morgan did so great. We only went to about 10 or 12 house, 5 of which had candy. It was just enough to get the experience though. He loved it. Pretty sure he was the cutest kid on the block. 

Can't wait until next year! I think kids in costumes is my favorite.

It's like having a dog that slowly learns how to talk.

So maybe comparing kids to dogs is wrong, but Josh and I can't help but say that little quote from a Scrubs episode when we're discussing the boy's developing language skills.

The process is so fun.

A few weeks ago he started crying 20 minutes or so after we put him down. He had been waking up like that for the previous few nights... I usually check him and make sure everything is fine, then put him right back, even if he cries, so he doesn't get in the habit of staying up. But he is usually so great at going down at night- so I thought something must be going on. Teething maybe? I hadn't noticed any new teeth, but it was possible. So anyways, I decided to get him and bring him out so he could chill with Josh and I. We started talking to him and really trying to figure out what was wrong.
"Are you happy?"
"No."
"Are you sad?"
"Sad."
"What's wrong? Are you hungry"
"No."
"Is it freaky in your room?" (He knows freaky means scary-ish... we say freaky spider, freaky... I don't know what else we say it for but he knows what it means!)
"Freaky!"
"Are you freaked out?"
"Freaked out!"
He proceeded to say freaked out a million times. Or maybe like 15.
Then all on his own, he pointed to his room:
"Dark room!"

Ah! My heart melted. So cute and so sad. The boy is scared of the dark now. I just wanted to hug him forever when I heard that. We had a nightlight in the hallway and I moved it to his bedroom. I hadn't put a nightlight in there before because I thought it might keep him up at night. I took him back to his room and showed him the light that would be there so it wouldn't be so dark. Josh and I talked to him about what a safe and happy place his bedroom was.
I changed his diaper and he started pointing to everything in his room and saying it was happy.
"Happy wall. Happy ceiling. Happy pig. (He has a piggy bank) Happy bed."
Cutie!
The nightlight has worked wonders- he sleeps great now!

photo dump.

Here ya go.

 

"hi bug."

my rabid little girly.

playhouse funtimes.

 

I love that little arm.

the boy gets so excited about this girl.

You're welcome.

milestone time.

She rolled over for the first time today! 

Oh yeah, and she haaates being on her tummy. 

being the mama.

       Shortly after the birth of my gorgeous baby girl, I got into a sort of mental funk. It didn't last long, thanks to a stellar hubs -Oh, have I ever mentioned how great he is? Yes? Ok just making sure- and a change in perspective... or rather remembering that an eternal perspective is always the source of joy.
       A couple weeks after Pearl was born I started to feel a little trapped. Just stuck at home, ya know? I don't know why, but I found myself thinking of the times before kids, when I could go wherever, whenever, basically- and hang out with friends and the like. When I used to be able to shower in the mornings and put makeup on and do my hair everyday. And go to the bathroom alone. I don't know what it was about having two rather than one. Maybe it was me not knowing exactly how to divide my attention, and being a little overwhelmed- I don't know. So what got me out of this ridiculous little attitude?

    Getting out with the hubs. That first month Josh and I got to go out a few times on actual dates. That was such a refresher for me. I'm so grateful to good friends who have watched our kiddies! Leaving a newborn might be hard- mentally- but I'm convinced that it really is ok- no, necessary-  to get out for a couple hours once in a while during the first couple of months. It can sure be hard when you're breastfeeding, but if you're only gone for a couple hours and can leave a bottle of pumped milk, you really don't need to stress about it. (Yeah right, huh?)

   My amazing kids, duh! Going out with my man is SO much fun. But so is coming home to the cutest, greatest kids in the world. Seriously, it's such a special feeling to come home to them. Even after just a couple hours. Josh and I are suckers for those kids. We enjoy our time together but we always miss them when we're gone. So after having those feelings of motherhood jadedness, then going out with Josh and coming home to those kids... I felt better. I looked into their eyes, gave them hugs and kisses, and played and laughed with them (Pearl doesn't laugh a ton yet, but she's still fun) and felt better. I look at them, you know, really look at them, and I see pure joy.

And I just started thinking about motherhood and the importance of it. How can I not feel important when I am literally someone's whole world? Morgan's world is getting bigger every day but I'm still such a huge part of it. I'm everything to him. And Pearl- she relies on me for every tiny little thing. I really am her everything. And Josh and those kids are mine.

So I guess what really got me out of it is remembering what it's all about. These relationships I have that are eternal and the source of true happiness.


   

cute kiddies and corn kernels.

We got to go to a pumpkin patch with our awesomely awesome friends. It was great times. See?