Weekend in review

Weekends aren't long enough. Especially when I make goals to clean my entire house AND undertake and pretty huge craft project...neither ever gets finished. 

Friday night I went to girl's night with the Wardell/Wiggins girls + Kristen. Good times. They're hilarious. Much craftiness and inappropriate conversation ensued.

I've been wanting super good Mexican food lately (one of the perks of living in Utah..it's only one state above Arizona- which basically IS Mexico). We tried this new place called Milagros. I got "The Happy Enchilada". The name does not tell a lie. James got a large plate of way too much meat. I give it two thumbs up. Jillian also sat in a restaurant high chair for the first time! She loved it. She didn't love not being able to eat our delicious comida.

 

The large craft project was making 6 new pillow covers for my living room. This didn't happen. I made one. Only after much tribulation with my stupid sewing machine that I only partly know how to work (it's only stupid because I'm like the step before novice when it comes to sewing).

(Shopping for craft supplies like a champ!)

I did manage to upcycle the lamps in our bedroom. I spray painted the bottom black and added ruffles to the shade (I'm still looking for a new switch pulley thing though).

(I couldn't really get a decent "after" picture..I didn't feel like unplugging it and taking it back upstairs where there was more light..laziness..)

This weekend gets B+. I'm so for making weekends Sunday and Monday instead of Saturday and Sunday. If we could all think that and make that happen, I'd appreciate it. 

:)

Dear Jillian (6 months)

Dear Jillian,

When the heck did this happen? You are growing much too fast my dear. I'm pretty sure I say that every time I write one of these...but it's true. It's bitter sweet. I look at pictures of your tiny, skinny little body from months ago and miss your first little noises. But each time you get a little bigger and learn to do something new I get so excited for you! It's the coolest thing to see you learn how to do things.

You are rockin' the rice cereal. You can eat it sitting up in your Bumbo chair now without it dribbling out of your mouth. You get quite mad if I'm not right there ready with the next bite for you.

You are starting to like peek-a-boo! You even anticipate us popping up again.

You've learned how to shake a rattle! It seemed to happen all of the sudden. I handed it to you and your little arm starting going crazy shaking it.

You can sit up! Not all the time by yourself, but for a solid 30 seconds to a minute. Even longer if your Boppy is behind you to give you a little more balance.

For some reason you are OBSESSED with the tiniest of details. Like the light switch above your changing table. You also love playing with tags (more than the toy the tag is attached to actually). The other day you also saw your shadow and just stared and stared. It was pretty funny.

I hope you'll be crawling soon-ish. You don't seem in any rush. Although you can push yourself all the way up on your arms, and sometimes you scoot yourself backwards a little, but that's about it.

You have TWO teeth! One is about halfway grown in and the other just cut through. They're both on the bottom. You didn't seem THAT fussy to be teething, so A+ job on that. You did bite me the other day though, so that was no bueno. I suppose I should be a little more careful around those chops.

We're trying to wean you off one of your medicines again. Last time wasn't so successful, but so far you've been getting half of your regular dose and you've done wonderful! Hopefully we'll be able to cut that one out completely over the next week or so.

You are quite the wiggle worm. It's getting fairly challenging to change your diaper, because you usually try to roll over. Once you do start crawling I'm sure you'll want to be all over the place all the time.

You grab faces. And hair. You like to do it the most when you're eating or falling asleep. Those little fingernails don't feel very good when they're digging into skin.

Falling asleep has gotten MUCH easier for you. We attempted to let you "cry it out" a couple of weeks ago, but that was an utter failure. The first night it took you an hour and a half and the second night you barfed 20 minutes into crying, so we decided that wasn't gonna work. Fortunately you're doing much better without that whole process. You just like your binky, a hand to hold, a few songs and you're out. You're also doing better at STAYING asleep, which is much appreciated.

Keep being awesome kid.

Love,
Mom

Heavy stuff.

Ever see someone else's situation and think to yourself, "Wow..I'm glad that's not me."

My mom often says the following: "I think before this life we all knew what our trials would be. We looked in our little "bag" and thought, "Oh..that's going to be hard.." But then we looked in someone else's bag and saw their trials and immediately wanted our own back."

That's definitely true. As I think back on all of Jillian's reflux issues and how hard that was for us to get get figured out (I was an emotional wreck- I thought my baby was broken), I look at what some other people have to experience with their children and think that exact thing...I'll keep my own little bag of trials.

I don't get all gushy/emotional about motherhood much. I'm too tired. But one thing I've never experienced before, and I don't think you are capable until you are a parent, is that I would do anything, absolutely anything, to ensure Jillian's health, happiness, and safety. That's a weird thing- to be so incredibly in love and involved with someone so little and so new that you can say that with such surety. I suppose that feeling only intensifies as they grow up and you realize your power over their well-being gets less and less, and their own independence gets to be more and more.

I've been reading two other blogs recently that have really made me think about this lately. 

Courtney Roth

Tripp is a little boy who has EB. A skin disease that causes him to blister with the slightest amount of friction to his skin.

Kelle Hampton

Nella is a little girl who was born with down syndrome to parents who were unaware of her circumstances until her birth. 

The whole process of a child is fascinating to me. Creating something out of nothing, feeling it grow inside of you, and then watch it develop into this little being with a personality, thoughts, feelings. It's a miracle. Having any child is a miracle. Having a perfectly healthy child? I feel like that's one above miracle. I take that for granted far, far too often.

Even though having a baby is hard. Waking up anywhere from 1-5 times a night is hard. Putting someone else's needs above your own is hard. I'll take it. Because those two women have one above hard, and they do it with such grace and gratitude. 

I don't believe people who say they're "grateful for their trials." I think what they mean to say is they're grateful they only have to endure their own. I'll take my own little bag of trials, and maybe after peeking into someone else's, I'll be a little more grateful for the ones I have to get through.

Affirmation.

With the week that it was, this was highly appreciated. 

Thanks Ava. You rock.

For the sake of blogging

It's been about a week..so I'm feeling the itch to write about something. However, now that all the holidays are over and everyone is back into the normal day-to-day routine, not much has happened (I mean..how do you top baby's first Christmas in a week? Just doesn't happen). So you just get a collection of random events/thoughts from the last week and a half. Enjoy.


-Jillian cut her first tooth! It's barely sticking out in all it's glory. Another one is on it's way soon. I'll have a baby with teeth. I suppose I knew that would happen, but already? Sheesh.


-Still no snow and it's JANUARY? This I am okay with. Completely.


-Two of my favorite quotes from my class this week: 

When using the vocabulary word “demand” in a sentence:

“Mrs. Houlin, I demand to touch your boot…slooowly..

-Daniel

Cooper: (referring to William’s lunch bag) Dude, is that a purse?

Eli: Noo. It’s a MURSE.

 -We decided to buy a house.  The word "mortgage" is scary. Am I old enough to have one of those?? Even though we JUST started the process, I'm already spending endless hours on  pinterest for decoration ideas. It's my new obsession. 
My new favorite ideas:




-All of my fave TV shows are back on! Praise! Now I don't need to create unnecessary drama in my life (which I think I was doing a little bit)- I can just watch it. And this season of the Bachelor? Oh em gee.


-My beautiful sister is coming out for a short visit next month to find an apartment. Yes, as in a place to LIVE. I couldn't be more excited.


-I've finally decided to open a shop on Etsy. I have no idea how it will go, but I've been wanting to do it for a couple of years...so why not? I've made Jillian a TON of adorable (in my opinion) onesies, burp clothes, headbands, etc...so I'll extend the love. You'll know when it's ready; I'll surely annoy the heck out of everyone with a ton of ads and giveaways.


All of this PLANNING (okay really just house shopping/Etsy making) makes me want summer real bad. Or just free time. I'd be okay with that too. But tomorrow is the 90th day of school, so at least we're half way there. :-)

So this is the new year.

It's always weird for me to think of years starting in January...as far as I'm concerned, the "year" is from August-May, some blurriness in between, and a new year starts in August again. Life of a teacher I suppose...

But since it is technically a new year, I should probably make some resolutions. When you're in college for teaching, they tell you to only set 3-5 rules for your classroom, because everything important can be summed up in 3-5 things and anything more is unrealistic and too much to remember. The same can be said about resolutions I think, so here we go:

1. Lose the rest of the baby weight..plus a few! (6 more pounds until pre-prego weight, and 10 more until the goal weight)

2. Be a little kinder.

3. Hopefully land an online teaching position for next school year.

4. Be a better listener.

5. Make at least half of the crafts and recipes I've pinned on Pinterest.  

Happy New Year!

A first time for everything

While we were in Florida, Jillian added some more "firsts" to her list- like squealing when she's happy (and straight up screaming when she's not). She also tried rice cereal for the first time! She gagged a lot at first, which was kind of hilarious...I don't know if it was because of the taste, texture, or spoon. But after a few days of eating it, she has it down and LOVES it. 

She got a Baby Bullet for Christmas- I'm so stoked to start using it for her pureed stinky little baby food meals in a few more weeks!!

Christmas Vacay

There's no place like home for the holidays. 


(Sorry for the lack of text...there was way too much to type...I figured most people would just want to look at pictures anyway. Basically there was a trip back home, and it was awesome).

Family photo/barf session

Yesterday we got together with the fabulous Amy Buchanan (see her website here) for a family photo shoot. My mom would have died had we not done this. The pictures turned out adorably, in spite of all the goings on before and after the pictures. 

The day before, Eliza (my 1 year old niece) spent the night throwing up. That morning while we were getting ready for pictures Michaela was throwing up. Then on the way to the shoot location, from the back seat I hear "I'm choking! I'm choking! I'm going to throw up!" Milly woke up out of a dead sleep to declare moments before orange vomit spewed out of her mouth, all over her car seat, and her one and only outfit for the pictures. 

It smelled horribly. James even said, "It smells orange.."

She proceeded to throw up once more during the photo shoot, off to the side in the grass somewhere. 

On the car ride home (we were all in 3 different cars because of all 8 of us plus 3 kids in car seats), my Dad had to pull over twice so Michaela could vomit on the side of the road. Well...the first time she didn't quite make it to the side of the road. And Milly threw up 7 or 8 times in the car (fortunately into a bag this time). 

By the time we all got home and night time came, Kimber and my Mom were also getting sick. 

Blegh. Here's to hoping the flu James, Jillian and I already caught guarantees our immunity from this barf fest. If not, I can't promise I'll be getting on an airplane tomorrow to make the trek back to Utah. 


Here's a sneak peek of some of the pictures: 

Baby's First Christmas

Christmas day was fabulous. We woke up and went to church, where there was an AWESOME Christmas program. Then we came home, put on our traditional Christmas jammies and opened presents.

I'm pretty sure Jillian loved crinkling the wrapping paper more than the actual toys/clothes/books she got...but either way we cheesed up every moment by helping her open each gift. 

Ryan, Kimber and the girls got there just in time for Christmas brunch (which was as fattening as it was delicious- quiches, baked french toast, bacon, breakfast casserole, holy smokes!). Then we exchanged gifts with them and settled down for a nap. 

We decided to also do a big Christmas dinner this year (usually it's just brunch), which was also amazing (beef wellington, mashed potatoes, green beans). And then we all sat around feeling extremely glutenous, but happy. Very happy. 

Merry Christmas! (or Murry Cri'mus! as some say).