Retirement?

Motherhood. You can't quit. You can't move up. You can't retire. And let me tell you...I'm so glad. Your mom is there to tuck you in at night, to kiss away your owies, and to scare the boogie man away. She's there threatening boys who might break your heart, and she's there when those same boys eventually do. She's also there when you're desperately tired, and on the verge of insanity.
My mom came down from Las Vegas to rescue me this past week. She came on New Year's Eve, told Joel and I to spend the night at my sister's (she is going to rent a house down the street from me, but hasn't moved in yet) and spent 3 nights getting Hunter and Mikayla to sleep through the night. This means I had 3, count 'em THREE blissful nights of uninterupted sleep! And the best part? It worked! Hunter now sleeps through the night. I don't know if she knows how much it meant to me for her to come down and help me out. I was so beyond tired that I was in survival mode. The instant she told me she was coming down it was like my body switched gears and I could have slept for days. Thank you mom. I love you.

Sleep

"Change requires effort, and effort requires energy. In an exhausted state, we may find it easier just to keep things as they are rather than try something different. In other words, when baby wakes for the fifth time time that night, and I'm desperate for sleep, it's so much easier just to resort to the easiest way to get him to fall back to sleep than it is to try something different.
Only a parent who is truly sleep deprived can understand what I'm saying here. Others may be able to calmly advise, "Well if things aren't working for you, just change what you're doing."
-The No-Cry Sleep Solution

All I have to say to that is "Can I get an AMEN?!"
Hunter hasn't slept through the night yet (except for maybe one or two times), I'm working on changing that (hence the book). I don't really feel it so much any more, I've gotten so used to not getting enough sleep, I'm not sure what I would do with myself if I got more than 5 hours of uninterrupted z's. I thought it would be fun to look back on this time of my life and remember what my night time routine looks like:

6- eat dinner
7- give the kids a bath
7:30- put their jammies on (this usually takes awhile since it is impossible for Hunter to lie down to get his diaper on and is usually halfway across the room before I have a chance to get the diaper under him. He then thinks this is a fun game of chase and the process is repeated a few times)
8- try to get Mikayla to brush her teeth. Then try again. And again. Then finally give up and pin her down.
8:10- try to get her to go to the bathroom. And then ask again. Then tickle her until she has to go.
8:15- Put Hunter down.
8:30- Go read to Mikayla/lay down with her/ sit in my chair and read a book.
10:00- finally she falls asleep and I'm free (yes, it takes an hour and a half for her to fall asleep, I wish I were exaggerating) . Then I usually take an hour to myself. I should go straight to bed...but it's the only time of the day where there isn't somebody right there. I've tried explaining that to Joel, I don't think he really gets it though. How can he?
11-go to bed
12:00- Hunter wakes up
1- Mikayla comes into our bed
3:30- Hunter wakes up
6- Hunter wakes up
8:30- Mikayla and Hunter wake up for the day


So why am I still up?...good question. Goodnight.

It's Snowing

There is a quote that pretty much sums up my life: "Cleaning house while the kids are still growing is like shoveling snow while it's still snowing".

Everyday I vacuum, attempt to do the dishes {I say attempt because it's rather difficult to empty the dishwasher while your son is climbing into it, and harder still while holding him. Have you ever tried to wash dishes one handed? Vacuuming I can do...dishes? Not so much}.
Then there's the sickness that just keeps swirling around my house. Runny noses, coughs, mastitis...oh, wait, that last one just concerns me, but when mama's sick the World as my family knows it stops. So far I've gotten it 3 times and this last bout was awful. I couldn't get up, couldn't sleep because of a headache {I was convinced that a drill would've been less painful} and the next morning {Joel's birthday, of all days} my husband informed me that I was burning up...I don't know what my temperature was, I wasn't going to get up for anything. Luckily, a few hours later, I woke up drenched in sweat, my fever had broken.
So why am I telling all of you this? Well, a couple of reasons.
1. To justify why I haven't been updating my blog as much as I want/ need to.
2. To justify to myself why my house isn't as neat as I would like it.
3. While my husband has many, many good attributes, he is somewhat lacking in the sympathy department...it's not his fault he is the model of health and gets sick maybe once a year, while I get sick if someone sneezes two blocks away.

So here is the update on the kids:

Mikayla loves her tricycle and we go on walks a lot (I've decided that I prefer it if Joel comes with us, that way I don't tense up every time a white windowless van drives slowly by). She knows all of her colors as well as the alphabet. She will stand up (sometimes on an upturned laundry basket) with her pretend guitar and belt out songs (with accompanying actions) that she makes up. She loves to laugh and is constantly making me laugh in turn. The poor thing has recently become scared of monsters and other such things that go bump in the night and therefore can't go to sleep unless one of us is with her. Then sometime during the night she wanders into our room to sleep between Joel and I. We often wake up to a foot in the ribs or a hand being flung in our face.

Hunter will dance to anything. He could be right in the middle of wailing at the top of his lungs and if a song plays in a commercial he'll start bopping away. It only lasts a few seconds, but it's almost as if his little body can't help but dance along. He LOVES dogs and starts squealing with delight when one comes within sight. He is no longer wearing his helmet. He has 4 new molars (which all came within a week), poor Hunter, poor mommy. He has been cruising for awhile now, but has recently started taking steps. He loves to push his sister in her tricycle around the island in our kitchen. He's still not sleeping through the night. All in all he's a pretty happy little guy- when he's not teething and as long as mom is right there.

Gift

Hey everybody!
I'm giving away a personalized ornament to everyone on my other blog:
Designing my bliss

Go check it out!!

October

For my birthday this year, I decided to have a little party at my house with a few friends. My friend, Lexi, made me the best Jack cake!




Then for Halloween Mikayla went as none other than Goldilocks herself with Hunter being Baby bear. We went to Disneyland's Spooktacular Event where we met up with Joel's brother and his family. It was way too crowded, so I doubt we'll do it again.



On Halloween night we went trick-or-treating with out friend's the Buhl's and their little boy Josh. I had to run to the store and then pick us up something to eat {silly Joel-he doesn't consider candy to be a good dinner}. When I got back, Mikayla was covered in chocolate while daddy was snoring on the couch. Priceless.

Mikayla's Crib

And I don't mean her hizouse, I'm talking about her baby crib. I had waited for my sweet little girl for years, so when she finally came I wanted to have the BEST nursery. I spent so much time online when I was preggers looking at bedding and planning. There was just one teensy little problem: all of the crib bedding I saw was a minimum of $500 {cough, cough}. Yeah...I'm sure Joel would go for that. Well, not one to let a little thing like price get in the way, I decided to make my own. I LOVE it. I still keep her crib in her room because I don't want to get rid of it. However, I've decided to make her a duvet cover and turn her room into a big girl room, which means...I will have to say goodbye to her baby bedding.

Story Time with Cinderella

The other month I was able to finally let my true identity be shown and read stories to all of the little princesses in my ward. It was really fun watching a couple of the girl's eyes go wide when they came in and actually thought that Cinderella was there. What was even better was when they wanted to take pictures with me, how cool is that?! Mikayla cracked me up when she came in with her group shouting "Mommy, you're Cinderella?" and promptly came to take her place on my lap. I'm still waiting for one last picture (I didn't have my camera with me) of my little princess and her- or rather my- Prince Charming.

Bake Sale!!

For my next bake sale I will be making chocolate, caramel, and candy covered Pretzel rods!

You'll get 2 of each:
Sprinkles
Toffee
mini chocolate chips and or mini m&m's

Cost: $10

Leave a comment with your order or e-mail it to me! I will deliver them on Oct. 24th in the morning. Thank you so much for your support!

Bedtime Woes

Mikayla has always had a difficult time at bedtime. Now for some reason or another, she is scared and she has to have the light on (maybe she's scared of the witch lady, too). I didn't mind it at first- she would just play for a little bit and then make her way to her bed and fall asleep. However, last night after she had been asleep for awhile, I went in to turn off the light when she screamed at me to leave it on and to come in and play dolls with her- even though she was still trying to rub the sleep from her eyes. I finally convinced her that 11 o'clock at night was in fact not an appropriate time to play with her paper dolls (especially since she was laying on the bed and just wanted me to play with them). She would not, however, be persuaded to turn off the light and Heaven forbid that I leave the room. So I laid with her for a little while until she realized that mommy was right (surprise, surprise) and having the light shine in your eyes is rather annoying and so she finally told me to turn it off. Then after awhile I tried to make my escape and failed. I tried a couple more times, finally succeeding somewhere around midnight. I guess we'll have to try something new. I sure hope Hunter doesn't have this problem (especially the part with the paper dolls).

Just in Time for Halloween

Joel and I went driving around on Monday to look for some good places for taking family portraits. We went down this little dirt road and I found a really pretty spot! Oh..well, I mean except for the fact that it's HAUNTED! {what the?!}

I showed my friend, Lexi, the picture and I told her how I thought it could be really nice if we just cleared some of the dead bushes and brush away. She said "Yeah, just watch out for the Queen Creek wash witch." {again..what the?!} Rumor has it that years ago a lady's only daughter drowned in the QC wash. She was so devastated about losing her beloved child that she became homeless and crazy, spending her time wandering the creek wash mourning her little girl. It wouldn't have been such a creepy story if I hadn't had such an eerie feeling while I was down in the wash (before my friend told me about the story). I took Mikayla down there with me and after a I took a couple of pictures, I swooped her up and ran back up the hill. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be taking pictures there!

This was obviously the first time I had heard the story, so if anybody has anything to add feel free! Also, I think it would be fun to post our own ghost stories on our blogs...Nevermind!! I'm too much of a wimp and didn't get much sleep last night because of this stupid story, I don't want to think how I would be if it was a story that was actually scary. This should be good for Halloween!