Ear Piercings

Kate and Sara have been begging and begging to get their ears pierced.  I tried to tell them that it kind of hurts and they have to be able to take care of them so they don't get infected.  It didn't stop them wanting them pierced, so I finally gave in.  They were very excited to go to Claire's and have it done.  Sara went first and let's just say it was a bit shocking.  It definitely hurt more than she expected it to.  I actually felt kind of bad.  Her eyes are very expressive and she was holding back tears.  Kate handled it much better.  She bounced out of the chair pretty quickly. 

 

Sara's eyes still look so sad! 

After we got home and the shock wore off, there were more smiles.  But then I left for work and disaster struck!  Each of them had one of their earrings fall out.  It was a very dramatic evening and Jerry was not quite equipped to handle it.  Oh, girls!  They had to just leave the earrings out and then on Monday we had to back to Claire's to have them repierced.  It was not fun, but they both did great.  And now that the earrings have been in for a week, the worst part is over and they are starting to have more fun with them.  Tonight, Sara was telling me about some earrings that she had seen that were hearts with a puppy inside that she was excited to wear.   

Sara picked out hearts while Kate picked out daisies.  They look very cute on each of them.   

It was really fun to do this little activity with my girls.  I'm happy to have my girls!

Matt's cub scouts

While looking through the pictures on my phone, I found this one and realized I hadn't ever posted it.  Matt worked very hard to earn his bear badge.  I am very proud of his hard work.  I like the cub scout program, but I think it is time to update some of the acheivements.  He didn't have near as much fun working on his bear badge as he did his wolf badge.  I do admire is ability to set a goal and acheive it!

6 month stats

Yesterday was Abby's 6 month doctor's check up.  He gave her a clean bill of health and even said she seems to be perfect!  At 6 months she weighs 16 lbs 10 oz.  She is 25.5 inches long.  She is growing nicely and has the chubby legs to prove it.  Her doctor's visit was pretty uneventful, except for the shots which are never fun, so we had to create our own fun while waiting around! 

Hanging out on my lap.  You can see the beginning of her rolls.  People have been saying it all along, but I'll make it official... she looks like her daddy!

And then I had to keep Sara entertained so the two of us engaged in a winking contest.  This is her right eye.  She's had it mastered for a while, but her new skill is...

her left eye.  I love the face she makes and how every muscle is working to get that left eye closed!

This is a picture I took on a walk we went on last week when the weather was nice.  I forgot to include it in the last post. 

 

I finally got some video of her laughing.  This is before the doctor's and before her shots.  She has so far handled them much better this time.  She had a hard time going to sleep last night so I slept on the couch with her.  Hmm, I may have really liked it!  You have to wait about 30 seconds to get the good laughing, but it's there!

6 Months!

Today Abby is 6 months old!  I cannot believe how quickly it has seemed to go.  It continues to amaze me how much babies in general learn and grow in such a short time.  We have loved how much more Abby has begun interacting with us.  The kids all really love to get her to laugh and talk with her.  Sara is really good at making her laugh, and I mean real laughs.  I tried to video it but every time the camera was on, of course she wouldn't laugh.  She still loves to have her tummy tickled when I change her diaper and she loves playing peek a boo.  I can even just say the words and she'll smile and giggle if nothing else. 

 

I love the looks of her little tooth.  The second one on the bottom is growing next to it.  It is so cute.   

I must admit that she tolerates the other family members holding her, but I am her favorite and it makes my heart melt every time I hold her and she snuggles into me. 

 

 I was looking through my phone at pictures I had taken this past month and I didn't remember taking this picture.  But then I remembered I took it to show her doctor how purple her extremeties get sometimes, especially after taking baths.  I'm sure it's normal and it hasn't been as bad lately and I thought the picture was cute so I added it to the post.

 

 Kate is a mother in training!  It made us all laugh to have Kate carry Abby.  It only lasted for about a second before Abby was screaming, but still cute.

 I spent some time this afternoon trying really hard to get a good picture of Abby and here are some that I took.  I love her big blue eyes.  They remind me so much of Kate's.

 

I was trying to balance Abby on my lap with one hand and take pictures with the other and this picture is kind of a "Woah, I'm falling" picture! 

 She is always sucking on her bottom lip.  She's done that since she was 3 months I think and I finally got a picture of it. 

 Abby rolled over once this month, but really shows no intention of doing it again.  She's happy enough on her tummy, but I think she'll be even happier when she figures out she can move around.  She is almost always being held by someone so I expect her to be late in rolling, crawling and walking.  But she's happy and I know she'll learn it all so I continue holding her a lot. 

She still doesn't sleep great.  I've gotten used to her 30-45 minute naps and she's happy so I don't worry about it too much.  Usually at some point during our busyness in the day she falls asleep in her carseat and then she sleeps longer so it all works out.  At night she wakes up frequently, but I don't always have to go into her room.  I've been trying to get her to bed earlier so I'm still willing to feed her once in the night and that is often my favorite time with her.  She nurses quickly and then she just melts into my shoulder and her cheeks are so squishy it's like a pillow for me!  I love it!  It is often hard to put her back into bed.  Last night she woke up at 1 and I rocked her a bit without feeding her and then she didn't wake up until 7:15.  I was kind of bummed that I didn't get my snuggle time with her.  Weird, right?


Finally this month I have felt the desire to start running again.  There is a new running store that I love.  They have group runs every Saturday and that is helping me be motivated.  It has been nice to be running again.  I really love it.  One day after running with the group, I could tell I ran faster and harder than I had yet and I knew I'd be sore.  My abs felt like jello all day.  It was kind of a weird sensation.  My quads have felt like jello often after hard runs and my abs have definitely been sore at times, but this was different.  It took a while to recover after that run, but I haven't had any major problems with soreness in my abs after that. 
However, my calves are another story.  I got new shoes and started feeling calf pain again.  It was frustrating and I just had to laugh that here I could have 4 layers of major core muscles cut through and they're fine, but my shoes could cause calf pain that is bad enough to make me unable to run.  I had gone with a pair of less motion controlled shoes due to knee pain from my last high motion controlling shoes so I just got some insoles for my shoes to give my heels a bit more stability and that has seemed to work well.  It has taken me a couple of weeks to get used to the insoles, but I think I'm there and I feel like I'm able to slowly begin increasing my mileage.  I'm really not in any hurry though.  It's nice to just be a bit more active.  I've also found a great website yogatoday.com that I love.  Doing yoga is really helping with my flexibility and recovering after runs.

This has been a good month and I look forward to month 7 and all the new things Abby will learn!

The luck of the Irish

Beyond wearing green, I never really celebrated St. Patrick's Day.  Until that was the day that worked for everyone and Jerry and I got married on that day!  12 years ago was the fabulous day and the day that I followed through on my best decision ever!  To celebrate, we enjoyed a night out on Saturday night and hung out with the kids on Sunday.  Sara was so into catching a leprechaun that for the first time ever in my life a leprechaun visited our house sometime Saturday night.  Actually at 6:45 Sunday morning was when the leprechaun quietly pulled the cushions off the couch and tipped over the ottoman and piano bench.  It was hard to set the alarm for that early after going to bed late and having every single child get up in the night and come into my room.  But it was worth it to see Sara's face that morning!  Even though I was tired from not getting much sleep, I was still very happy all day yesterday thinking of the wonderful family that Jerry and I have been blessed with.  So even though I don't have any Irish blood and I have know idea who St. Patrick is, I feel pretty lucky and I'll take that!

Catching Leprechauns

Sara has been a very busy girl this week.  On Wednesday in her preschool class, a leprechaun had come and messed up their classroom and they spent all day talking about leprechauns and other St. Patrick day things.  Their teacher gave them a little bag of things that they could use to catch a leprechaun.  After school Sara's friend, Maddie, came over and they spent all afternoon trying to set up leprechaun traps. We went on a walk because the weather has been so nice.  She and Maddie saw some green thing up ahead that they had to go check out because they thought it was a leprechaun.  They were running up ahead of me and we saw a couple different people we know from church who asked them what they were doing and they were so serious in their answer of "catching leprechauns".  It was cracking everyone up.  When they got to the green thing they were so disappointed to find that it was just a rolled up garden hose.  I told them it probably was a leprechaun at first and he put the hose there to trick them. 

 These ears were one of the things in the bag.  Eating a blueberry muffin is not a trick to catch a leprechaun but Sara doesn't always like me taking her picture so I take what I can get!

 

 In other Sara news, she went to a birthday party this afternoon and got her face painted.  She did not want it washed off.  The only way I could convince her was to tell her I'd take a picture that could last forever.  There were still many tears as I wiped it off.  Am I so mean, or what?

Sara likes to dress up.  Her outfits often crack me up.  This color combination made me laugh.

 

 And shortly after the leotard and tutu she came out of her room wearing this.   I have never had a girl play dress up in soccer clothes, but I loved it!

A moment of gratitude

On Monday I had to take Abby in for a hip x-ray.  When I took her in for her two week check up, her pediatrician told me she would have to have an x-ray at 6 months to make sure she didn't have any hip displaysia.  It is apparently most common in girls who are breech.  He checked her very carefully at all her appointments and couldn't feel any problems so I completely expected the x-ray to be normal and wasn't worried about it at all.  In fact, I was strangely excited.  I have a weird fascination with x-rays and things like that thanks to my dad!

 

Anyway, I had to take her to the children's section at the nearest hospital.  I didn't have to go downtown to Primary Children's because they opened a smaller unit in a closer hospital, but it was completely geared for children.  They had some really cool toys and other activities and it seemed really great for children who had to be there.  And as I looked around, I felt so grateful that I have never had to spend time in a children's specific hospital with any of my children.  I can't imagine having to sit in a waiting room with that feeling of anxiety wondering how this test or that test will go or what the results or treatments, etc. would be.  I feel so blessed to have such healthy and happy kids. 

 

Abby's x-ray was normal as we expected.  When she was born she also had an ultrasound because she has what the doctor called a "dimple" at the base of her spinal column.  They had to make sure that her spinal column had developed normally which it had, fortunately.  That was a relief, but I was so dopey in the hospital that I don't think I even really comprehended that test!

 

In other Abby news, last Friday I noticed she has a tooth poking through her gums!  I was so excited.  I don't know why I was so excited about it but I was probably acting like it was my first child.  I guess even though I've seen the "first tooth" before, it doesn't get old even with later children!  Sara shared in my excitement and we laughed at how Abby and Sara have a tooth growing in in the same spot.  I couldn't get Abby to open her mouth for a picture so I had Sara smile for both of them.  Such cuties!  I'm so grateful for my healthy kids!

 

After school competition

If you know me well, you know I am a little bit competitive.  I have even been known to compete in things with other people who don't even know they are in a competition with me.  I like to ensure that I win!

Anyway, this post really is about the traffic when I pick my kids up from school.  It is so ridiculously crowded.  And it seems like this year is so much worse than the others.  I don't know why, it's kind of weird.  Anyway, it gets really frustrating.  I can't believe how bad all the other drivers are and how they are always in my way moving so dang slowly!  The worst part comes when exiting the school grounds.  Let me see how well I can explain this.  There are two options.  I can turn left, or I can turn right.  Turning left is the ideal track to get home the quickest, so I prefer to turn left and if I am ever at the school during the day and there is no traffic, I turn left.  But turning left after school hours is the worst.  Not only do you have the normal traffic that you have to navigate a left turn into, but you have to deal with all the people turning left and right into the school grounds.  Those who are turning left out of the school are the lowest priority and so there is always a long line of cars waiting to turn left.  My solution is to turn right out of the school.  I then have to turn into a neighborhood and go a little extra distance to get back to the main road.  It's not always the fastest option, but it's definitely the least stressful, so I usually turn right. 

However, my other solution to avoiding school traffic is to get to the school a little later than the other cars.  Matt, in particular, is pretty slow coming out of his classroom so I don't feel like I need to be there early, and Kate is playing around with friends so they are both ok waiting a few extra minutes. 

Ok, I am going somewhere with this.  By the time I am leaving the school, there is usually a line of cars turning both left and right, but there are fewer cars turning into the school.  The line of cars turning right usually moves faster, but if there is a break in traffic and the left line has a good window, it goes quickly, and remember, that is my preferred direction to turn!  So every day I'm faced with the question of which line to get into.  Do I take my chances on the left line knowing it can either go quickly, or take a very long time, or do I take the right line, knowing it will go smoothly, but it's longer distance and might take more time.  Often, I'll pick my line and then look at which car I'd be behind in the other line and when we all get to the same road, I see if I am ahead of or behind the car I would have been behind in line.

Until recently this had been a personal little game I played with myself and the other cars.  But then one day I asked my kids which line to join and told them what I do and now every day we ask together which line and watch the other cars.  It's our really fun personal game.  And so far we've picked the fastest line each day; right twice and left once!  We all get ridiculously excited when we see the other cars and know we picked the fastest line!  You'd think we'd won a gold medal or something!  It definitely makes the after school pick up way less stressful so I'd say we win every day no matter what!

I Know Who I Am

I have been meaning to post this video for some time now, I've just never gotten around to it, so here it is.  These are the young men and women from my stake.  A lot of them are from my ward, a few of them have babysat my kids and some of them I taught when they were between the ages of 8 and 11.  Needless to say, I think these kids are great! 

It makes me sad how many rude, anti and incorrect comments have been left on this video.  It's amazing how brave people become behind the face of the internet.  If you happen to lurk my blog and want to leave an anti comment, don't.  I'll delete it and it won't change what I believe in.  I am a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it.