Going Private

Hi friends and family. We have decided to make our blog private (this means that you need to log in with your email and password to view the blog). If you would like an invitation please send me your email, and I would LOVE to send you one. I already spammed a bunch of you with invites, so you may have already found one in your inbox :)

Thanks!!

Aaaahhhh Monster Jack

Pretty terrifying, isn't he? Maggie is really into monsters these days, and when I pull Jack out of the tub and wrap him up, without fail Maggie shrieks, "AAAAAHHHHHH Monster Jack!" Then I go get Jack dressed while keeping an eye on Maggie down the hallway and let her prune to her heart's content. This is not the only time of day that Maggie screams and runs from Jack in faned terror, and without fail, she'll get this grin in response. Yep . . . pretty terrifying.

Here's a picture just cause. Cause I felt like I needed a picture with my baby before he isn't one anymore and it is SO fun to squish his soft little cheek against mine.  

In my kitchen tonight

This is what my kitchen looked like tonight. Both my kids are scared of the blender = noise canceling headphones. Joe says we are raising wusses. The headphones have to come out when I am vacuuming too.

Love how the headphone look like they are smashing his head. At least he isn't screaming in terror.

We were cooking up one of my favorite "Joe isn't coming home for dinner meals." Pumpkin protein pancakes (http://dashingdish.com/recipe/pumpkin-spice-protein-pancakes/) and smoothies.  The texture on the inside of the pancakes is kinda pumpkin pie-ish and super yummy without being too sweet which is awesome. Maggie and I are both big fans. Maggie really loves helping me cook these days.

We also made chunky crayons with all the tiny crayon stubs that have been hanging out at our house and driving me crazy for awhile now.

The only good thing about Joe being out of town is that I don't worry about the house being a complete disaster when he gets home. Also, apparently I update my blog more often.

I'm excited to get creative with the crayons with Maggie tomorrow. She loved making them.

Challenges

Unless you enjoy rambling, you might want to stop reading right here. I am kinda wordy lately. I think it is because Joe has been gone so much that I have to type out all my words 'cause you can only talk on a two-year old level for so long before feeling a little crazy.

Speaking of two year olds, I am glad that there is at least one little person that enjoys it when I sing at the top of my lungs and dance like a moron. Her name is Maggie and she is mine. Today I am happy about that. Yesterday, not so much.

It is absolutely amazing how my attitude is reflected in her behavior. The last few weeks have been extra stressful as Joe has been recruiting for internships. For some reason it has been a lot worse than it sounds. He is out of town for the second weekend in a row. While he was out of town last weekend I got mastitis, Maggie got the flu (while I was at my sickest), then I got the flu (luckily Joe was back by then) but unluckily, I threw up my antibiotics which meant that mastitis came back. Poor little Jack's milk was seriously pussy (green I tell ya). Too much info probably, but hey, I was an ER nurse in my day and there is still a part of me that finds puss kinda cool. Anyway, all this sickness and stress turned me into a MONSTER. I was grumpy grumpy grumpy and Maggie was disobedient, mean, and generally unpleasant which made me more grumpy. Last night I finally felt well enough that I turned some old conference talks on my ipod and began cleaning our apartment which was a disaster after the last week of me laying on the couch and doing nothing. A couple good hours of cleaning coupled with (and more importantly) a little spiritual nourishment that I had been sorely needing, and I finally started to feel a real peace that I have not felt in a long time. Today I was feeling so much better, and like magic, Maggie was fun, playful, cute, and occasionally obedient.

Three passages from Lorenzo Snow in Chapter 7 of the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church were especially uplifting to me:

This one:

From the time of our receiving the Gospel to the present, the Lord has from time to time given us trials and afflictions, if we may so call them; and sometimes these trials have been of that nature that we have found it very difficult to receive them without murmur and complaint. Yet at such times the Lord blessed us and gave us sufficient of His Spirit to enable us to overcome the temptations and endure the trials. Every man and woman who serves the Lord, no matter how faithful they may be, have their dark hours; but if they have lived faithfully, light will burst upon them and relief will be furnished.

This one:

Many of you may have severe trials, that your faith may become more perfect, your confidence be increased, your knowledge of the powers of heaven be augmented; and this before your redemption takes place. If a stormy cloud sweep over the horizon … ; if the cup of bitter suffering be offered, and you compelled to partake; Satan let loose to go among you, with all his seductive powers of deceivings and cunning craftiness; the strong relentless arm of persecution lifted against you;—then, in that hour, lift up your heads and rejoice that you are accounted worthy to suffer thus with Jesus, the Saints, and holy prophets; and know that the period of your redemption has approached.

And this one:

We have every reason to rejoice and to be full of joy and satisfaction, notwithstanding the difficulties that surround us. And how far have we advanced, how much knowledge have we obtained and how much more are we able to bear now than one, two or five years ago, and are we able to stand more now than a few years ago? The Lord has strengthened us and increased us in our growth. Like the infant, when it grows up it knows not how it received gradual strength and the manner in which it increased in stature. It is larger this year than last. So in regard to our spiritual advancement. We feel stronger today than we did a year ago.

I was looking at things all wrong. I had this idea in my head that I have so many blessings that I have no right to complain or be sad. Period. I  felt like sadness or acknowledging my trials would be a lack of gratitude. As I talked with Joe (in his wisdom . . . oh so wise Baxter) he pointed out that we are supposed to count our blessings (which I thought I had been doing), not look at the sum of our blessings. What a slight but important distinction. My approach was this: I have a lot of blessings so I shouldn't notice my trials and I should be happy. A much better approach is to acknowledge that this or that might be challenging right now but I have this blessing + blessing + blessing + . . .  Somehow that second method makes all the difference. Maybe it is because in the second scenario I don't have to pretend like I never have any problems. My problems or trials are given to me to help me grow, and I shouldn't compare my trials to others even if my intent is to minimize my own. My trials are hard because they are mine and that is okay. And I have a lot of blessings too. And that is awesome.

I just saw this beautiful picture for the first time. If anyone knows who the artist is, I would love to know.

6 Months

Jack,

Holy speeding bullet Batman! (K. I am a dork.) But seriously, the six months that you have been a part of our family have just flown by. Time has been moving fast ever since Maggie was born, but I feel like it accelerated on the day that you were born. I adored you from the moment I held you in my arms, and 6 months later I only love you more. You are such a happy, smiley baby and are seriously a joy to have in our family. I wish I could slow things down so that I could enjoy you for a bit longer.

Here are some of your quirks--the things that make you so uniquely you and just a few of the reasons that I love you. You are a good communicator. You tell me what you need using your voice and body language. Because of this, you seldom cry. When I walk back into the room after being gone even just a couple of seconds, your whole body reacts with excitement. You flap your arms kinda bird-like and wiggle your hips. Even though you don't cry very often, when you are not getting your way, you cry loud and hard and persistently. When I walk around the room, especially if your Daddy is holding you, your eyes follow me everywhere. You love getting your clothes off and your diaper changed. The closer you are to naked, the wigglier you get. You have a little dance that you do when I change your diaper; you wiggle your hips, flap your arms up and down, then grab your feet, followed by other little parts. I am always trying to keep your hands out of the way little stinker. You are a hair puller BIG TIME. I can't even wear my hair in a pony tail when I am holding you because you grab the hairs at the bottom of my neck and pull them out. If Maggie's hair is within your reach? Watch out! Luckily she is pretty patient with this, but I am sensing that her patience is starting to fail so we will see what happens.

You are very curious and want to see everything that is going on in your world. This makes feeding you a little difficult as you are often whipping your head around and craning your neck to observe what is going on in your world. When I bathe you, you kick your legs and splash! For awhile we called you Thumper because of the way you aggressively kick the ground with your heels. You LOVE Maggie. You love watching her, and you especially love it when she plays with you. I think your favorite activity is when she pushes you in your baby swing (often so aggressively that she slides the swing across the floor and bangs it into the opposite wall). Her favorite is when I help you jump on the bed with her. Both activities get lots of laughs. Really though, all Maggie has to do is get in your face and you talk and squeal and laugh. You have a fuzzy little head that is pretty much irresistible to rubbing and cheeks that are definitely irresistible to kissing.

You can roll very well from back to front and vice versa. You also pivot in circles and try to inch your way here and there. You like spending time on the floor playing, but when you decide you are done, you won't be happy until you are snuggly in my arms. You actually don't like being rocked to sleep. I sometimes try to rock you in the rocking chair or just in my arms, but you don't care much for it. You are too busy wiggling and squirming, trying to get a better look at your world. When I lay you in your crib, you usually go to sleep without a single complaint. But, if you decide you aren't ready, you cry and scream for sometimes a very long time, until I usually give up (which I am sure is at least part of the problem), but because you usually don't cry at all, it breaks my heart when you do. Yup, you have me wrapped around your finger. Plus, you make the most adorable sad face. I have been in love with it since day 1.

We still swaddle you for sleep, and you are just starting to regularly break out when you wake up. You still wake up a couple times at night, but I have had a hard time working with on this with you because I am afraid your cries will wake up Maggie and bring knocks on our door in the middle of the night (happened just once so far). You take 2-3 naps a day. If we are out doing something interesting, you will sometimes skip right through your morning nap. Other days, you refuse to take an evening snooze, even when I know you are super tired.

You can almost sit up, but not quite. I think you would be able to sit up if you weren't so busy trying to reach for everything that you see. For a few days you did a head bob that was totally freaking me out, but luckily it seems to have passed. I think you were just exploring a new way of moving your body. You eat solid foods one time before bed. Surprisingly, you had the hardest time with sweet potatoes so far. They made you gag with the first few spoonfuls, but your best "this is gross face" showed up when I fed you peas for the first time. I don't have your growth stats on me right now, but you were around 50% for weight and height. Just perfect.

And I think that about sums it up. As far as I am concerned, you are pretty much perfect. I am so grateful that I get to be your mama.

Here is a little video that I think at least your Grandmas might enjoy, of you making your favorite noise! It is kinda long, but it made made your daddy laugh, so here is the uncut version.

Yep, you are a cutie. xoxo

How did she do that?

I think I know my kids so well. I think I know their abilities, capabilities (what is the difference between those two words and which am I supposed to use? . . . no idea), talents, etc. etc. The other day Maggie totally knocked my socks off. My jaw actually dropped open.

She drew this picture of "Curious George and Snow White."

She is 2.5 years old, and maybe that drawing isn't advanced for other two-year olds (it seems a little advanced to me), but I have never seen Maggie draw ANYTHING requiring that kind of precision and patience. She usually scribbles. I am impressed when she intentionally scribbles in one place or draws lines or circles. The closest replication I have seen to this detailed drawing or attempt to draw anything "real" is when I drew a plain yellow circle for the sun, she said, "that is not what the sun looks like. THIS is what the sun looks like." She added the sun rays (which she had no word for at the time), but seriously, other that that instance, I have NEVER seen anything like this before or since. You can get a sample of what a more typical drawing would look like by observing the lines around the figures on the page.

I can't help but wonder, if she can draw like that, why doesn't she draw like that? Perhaps she just doesn't want to put so much effort into her drawings or perhaps she is just too much of a free spirit to be drawing "real" things. I don't know, but clearly I underestimated her. Makes me wonder how often I do this.