An Adorable Girl

I absolutely love this little girl.  She is amazing in every way.  M has the kindest heart.  When she sees someone playing alone she will go be with them, go on their team, be their friend.  M is smart, funny and gorgeous inside and out.  

I love her creativity!  I love her smile!  I love how much she loves her brother!

M is so naturally talented.  Reading, Writing, Creativity.

M is full of life and loves to laugh.  She has been the light of our lives.

Here is M right before the school Daddy Daughter Dance.

Chad and M had a fantastic time and can't wait until next year.

What color do you want to wear?

I thought I posted this earlier but I guess it was still in draft mode.  

Has anyone ever felt that some days run smooth?  Then other days that you are just running all over the place?  I have noticed when key things are out of place that those are the moments I am just running all over the place.  I have certain actions that make my days run smoother.

Setting the clothes out the night before.  

Luckily for me M is not particular in what she wears.  Of course E at the point of being 3 does not have an opinion either.  So when I pull their clothes out I will ask them one question.  

What color do you want to wear?

I will go through their closet and look at shirts with that color.  I choose depending on the weather and if they have worn that outfit recently.  Given Sundays is a different story M usually picks out her dress and Chad usually picks out E's outfit.  I really do need to implement setting out their clothes on the weekend.  

Setting clothes out the night before.  

Do I do that every day?  No. 

Though I love the feeling when I wake up and I can tell M to get dressed and I don't have to turn around after she is all dressed and tell her that she does not match.

   

Mom, Why are you forcing me to wear green everyday? - M

As I shared in an earlier post, I lay out their clothes or try to the night before.  I usually ask them what color they want to wear.  Well I have not been asking for the last 17 days.  I try on the months where we have a holiday to dress them accordingly.  I have never before had any complaints until this morning.  March 17th - St. Patrick's Day!  M asked me, "Mom, Why are you forcing me to wear green everyday?"  Thank goodness it is the last day and I could easily respond, "Oh, okay... today is the last day anyway."  I guess I never realized how I did give them choices that to her by not asking I was forcing her.  Duly noted.

 

 It has been a fun month of green.  It is hardly believable that March is soon coming to an end.  The kids have loved all the decorations.

M really wanted a picture with the fire going.  I guess my camera did not pick that up.

 E is in a new habit of making faces when I tell him to smile.

 We keep using the fact that we are getting a trampoline as bait to make him smile.

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone.

They Never Used Pacifiers or So We Believed

Our kids never used Pacifiers.  You would think that by that statement we really accomplished something, at least that is what I thought.  Until I realized, Yes they don't use pacifiers but they do pacify themselves with something.

For M it was her puppies.  My younger sister gave M this sweet puppy within the first year of her life.  We affectionately put this puppy, that will be named "Lady" later, into her crib.  Well I guess somewhere she started to pacify herself with her tail.

With the fear of losing her puppy we added more to our family.  Just like a pacifier we did not want to be caught without one of her puppies.

 It continued on until a month before her 5th birthday.  We realized she would not stop until these puppies were gone.  Just like a "pacifier" we had to throw them away.  She was very attached to these puppies.  I could not see taking away her best buddies and companions. 

So one day we talked about growing up and how she was going to go to Kindergarten.  A few weeks later she agreed to cut the puppies tails off.  So we found all of them and together cut them all off.

Then together we sewed them all back together.  Unfortunately the relationship and the amount of time played with these puppies dramatically changed once they had no tails.  It was kind of sad but great to see that she would not be in High School using the puppies to pacify herself.

Now to E.

When he was born.  He was also not hooked to a pacifier.  I do remember in NICU he actually took the hospital pacifier better then the cute ones I bought.  Being the vain Mom that I was kept pushing my pacifier on him.  In the end he just did not want it.  I was glad and disappointed all at the same time.  

When E was a baby he would sometimes spit up in the crib.  Probably not the best thing but somewhere in there Chad started putting E to bed with a burp cloth behind his head  (which was actually a cloth diaper my Mom doctored up with cute fabric).  Then as with with M, E started using the burp cloth as a pacifier.  I looked through all my pictures and these are the only ones I can find of him.  Unlike M where her dogs are in every picture with E his burp cloths are no where to be found.  Vain is what I call that. 

With M it was easier to just to cut off the tails.  Though with the burp cloth it has been a whole different story.  E started pulling the dirty ones out of the laundry and using those.  So what did Chad do?  Chad took half of the disgusting looking ones and threw them away.  

We soon realized he was still pulling them out of the laundry.  So we had hand (my hand that I pretend to make talk) tell E that it was disgusting to use yucky burp cloths.  We started taking each burp cloth after he woke up and having "hand" tell him it was yucky.

Now when I come into a room and he has a (yucky) burp cloth he tells me,  "Mom here, this is yucky, I don't want it."   We feel like this is a big step.  Hand keeps telling E that one day he will not use them at naps and then later no more at bed time.  E tells hand okay and listens to him.  We now stick the burp cloths in a cupboard above the washing machine after each bedtime and each nap.    We were very pleased when he went to my older sisters home for an unexpected going to sleep and she offered E a burp cloth from her baby and E turned her down saying, "Oh, it's okay that is her burp cloth".  

So yes, our kids never used real pacifiers.

We will continue to work on weaning E from his burp cloths.  Hopefully he is not scarred for life with "Hand" but E listens to "Hand" a lot better than his parents in regards to his burp cloths.  

Sister Projects

 I can not begin to express the great joys of living near my sisters.  I have had projects in boxes for over a year in Texas.   I was too afraid to mess them up.  I wanted them to guide me and see them do it first.  It has been so fun to get together.  We usually have lunch or dinner and work on projects.

Here is February.  My Mom decided to make these cute flags.  My sisters were so sweet to put together my wood projects when I was in Texas.  In the mean time I have been painting all the other holidays.  Only the hand made decorations are being shown.

 In the above middle picture you see the hanger.  Every Holiday we switch out the blocks to coordinate with the different holidays.  We just made this "Home Sweet Home" for months that there is not a holiday.

 

 My younger sister found this adorable Family Rules Project.  So we went to work.  We bounced ideas off each other for colors and fabric.  Then one day we got together to assemble it.  It was a great day of visiting and eating Cafe Rio.

 

Below is St. Patrick's Day.  Years ago I started looking for cute ideas.  The pictures below are only of things that are hand made.  We had a great time.  My Mom continued to make us flags for the different holidays.  We just recently got together and made the big lucky over the mantle and the countdown.

 

This last picture is the one of the Salt Lake Temple.   At Desert Book this picture normally retails for $200 give or take.  My older Sister had a connection that we were able to make these for about $53.  When we showed up last night the frame was not put together and was white.  From 6 - 9 pm we worked and put the frame together and with the help of paint and a staple gun it was done by time we left.  With a professional look over the picture so glass is not needed. 

 Isn't that fun!?!

The Child Doctors Told Us Not To Have

If you ever had a moment to be around E you would instantly fall in love with his checks, his smile, his long eye lashes.  He has the sweetest most loving personality.  He is out right our blessing, our miracle, our bonus child. 

After M was born we had complications that took a huge toll on our family.  A great blessing that the complications had nothing to do with M but with me.  After a period in the hospital the doctors told us not to have more children.  What a big blow.  We had a healthy baby.  I had a healthy pregnancy.  It was just the aftermath.  We always knew we wanted at least one more child, if those same complications came than we would handle them.

When M was 18 months old I got really sick.  Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS).  Doctors told Chad that if he had  waited 24 hours to call 911 they would have been planning my funeral.  After being in ICU for a week and getting better I had the same complications that took place after M was born.  This time again hospitalized as doctors tried to figure everything out.  Once again we were told not to have more children.  It would not be during pregnancy that there was a problem it was just the potential of after.

We took a long time going down that road.  Knowing that this was a big decision.  We always felt that we might go through the complications but at least we would be holding a baby.  So after TSS and the complications I was left feeling empty.  

M was 3 1/2 years old when we decided to try to have another one and pray that no complications came about.   I remember praying for us to have a boy so I could feel okay with being done.  Praying that everything would be smooth sailing.  

This time we had no complications with me.  However E was born at 33 1/2 weeks.  He was a healthy 5  1/2 pound baby boy.  What a big baby!  He spent 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital.  Those 2 1/2 weeks even though they were hard and challenging we knew that he was supposed to be there.  It gave me time to focus on healing and knowing that he was in the best possible care.

Now our baby boy is 3 1/2 years old and as we come to the conclusion that our family is complete.  We stand in awe and gratitude.  

Gratitude for having the sweet little boy that we do.  I know that everyone has their trials and struggles in life that mold and shape them into the person they are.  

Though I am grateful for my trials and my struggles.  They have taught me so much.  They have taught me empathy to situations that I never understood before.  In life you can learn from experience.  Though my favorite quote is "A wise man learns from experience.  A super wise man learns from others experience."

One thing that I can look back and share that got me through those trials was a long time ago I started a "Gratitude Journal".  I would just write what I was grateful for.  During the toughest of moments try it.  Pull out a piece of paper and write.  "I am grateful for...(and then fill in the blank)."  During those moments in life when you just can't think of anything stop and really think.  What am I learning from this?  How can what I am learning benefit others?  How can I grow from this?  What is this teaching about me?  What kind of an example am I being (to my child) in how to handle the trails in life that one is given?  

Gratitude is an art of painting an adversity into a lovely picture.  ~(Kak Sri)

How Our Dinners Evolved

Note in these pictures our son was in charge of setting the table.

Back somewhere in 2007 / 2008 I had a frustrating moment with dinners.  I would make this amazing time consuming meals for my family of 3.  Anticipating the time my husband would come home.  Just to have him not show up for 1-2 hours later.  The kicker was he only worked a mile away.  Each night dinner continued to get colder and colder until I decided to just eat and put the extras in the fridge.

After having our 2nd child I decided that the types of meals I was making was not going to help me lose the added weight gain of 2 pregnancies and medical complications afterwards.  In addition to add in that my husband was at a new job and got home after the kids were in bed.  So I made kid meals.  Grilled Cheese sandwiches, pancakes, cereal. You get the idea.  The ones they never complain when they eat.  

Then I started the journey ahead of me.  In two years I lost weight.  Yet in the process of moving out of State and the stress of buying a house out of State.  I gained a little back though for a total I have kept off 70 pounds.  Which is a huge accomplishment.  For months I wanted to get back to cooking for my family.  I wanted to cook healthy meals.  Though after 2 years of not cooking regularly it was a big undertaking without even adding the healthy aspect.  Since I had lost the weight not cooking I had a warped interpretation that losing weight was not possible while cooking at the same time.  For some reason I felt that I had to cook two different meals.

In the month of January I moved to counting calories.  From Christmas day until now I have gone down 10 pounds while cooking for my family.  You mean it is possible??  But how??

It took effort real effort in the beginning to take a meal and add up all the ingredients.  To figure out how many servings I would use and then know 1 cup of Taco Soup = 161 calories  or that I made 7 servings of Pasta and each = 291 calories.  After taking the time to do this once and maybe add it up a time here or there if I use different ingredients.  I love using Livestrong.com to add these recipes together.  Especially the complicated ones.

Taco Soup has the date on it since I just made two batches to have for dinner and freeze after.  

The great thing was jumping back into real dinners for the family was like I had never stopped.  

So now I am in search of new dinner ideas that your family loves!  Post a comment and share your favorite family dinner recipe.