New Steps

Today was a hectic day even though I stayed home all day. I tried to get a bunch of house work done today and succeeded in vacuuming and mopping the living room and kitchen. I also sadly realized that I have several more years of cleaning up sticky floors. We have wood laminate floors and between the tumbleweed of dog hair and the crumbs from the babies and spilt water and cut onions bits or whatever our floors seem to get dirty so fast. I almost just don't want to do it because as soon as I let the dogs in you can see their paw prints or they slurp water and slosh it everywhere. Or then its dinner time and noodles are flying off the high chair, but alas this is that season of life and I have to get used to it! At least Daddy like it and was really appreciative when he came home so that is nice.

Aaron did not want to take a morning nap today so I tried to feed them lunch early and put them both down a little early than they have been. Aaron slept but only for his usual hour and a half and I don't think Grace slept at all, although she was quiet.

When Aaron did get up from his nap I let him have some animal crackers and he actually took his first steps all by himself, twice in a row! I was/am so proud of my little boy! He has been 'walking' holding onto us for awhile now and it just seems like he just didn't ever have the confidence and also that he thought his speed crawling was faster. Hopefully this is the beginning of many more walking adventures to come and he may be actually walking for his birthday in 2 weeks!

I took this video this afternoon of Grace riding her rocking horse, she was previously yelling, "YeeeeeeHaaaawwww!" over and over, but of course as soon as I started videoing she stopped. Oh and another things she says that I don't want to forget is about Hide and Seek. She loves playing that with K and she will count to 3 (yeah he doesn't get much time to hide) and then she will say, "Ready or no heres mine come!" It is the cutest darn thing ever. Oh and sometimes she will hide in the same spot over and over again. She is too cute!

Well tomorrow K and I have a date night and we are so excited to get out of the house and hang without kids. We both have been a little stressed out lately with different things, work pregnancy, kids, dogs, life...you name it and we are thankful for Grandma and Aunt L to babysit together tomorrow. We are looking forward to a wonderful weekend starting with date night and ending with church and a going away party for some new friends on Sunday evening. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend planned! All our Love!

Wednesday

Went to playgroup today. The only other mom in the group J who has 3 kids has decided to take over playgroup which I am so thankful for. So we had it at her house today. She has a great backyard that is huge and chickens and a garden. Her oldest two girls are 3 and almost 2 and then she has a little boy who is about 3 months younger than Aaron I believe. Grace loved hanging out with the girls. We are going to try to do a small bible study about being a mom as well and I am so thankful for her deciding to do this. Myself and another mom had considered co hosting it, but really this will be so much better for me as I get underway with this third pregnancy. Plus J is so understanding as she has 3 in the same age range as we will. She is a sweet heart!
After playgroup we swing through Micka-Donalds (as Grace would say) and that is the only time Aaron slept. From playgroup through the drive thru and then to the grocery store where I wolfed my sandwich down before getting the kids up and out.
We had no milk and I needed some essentials for a dinner I planned tonight and some fruit. Aaron loves fruit. I got these delicious huge green seedless grapes and I was biting them in half for him this afternoon for a snack and he was just going to the bowl himself and stuffing them into his mouth. I guess he feels pretty tough now that he has a top and bottom tooth! :)
I made an Asian dinner tonight. I went with a recipe from Barefoot Contessa on Food Network but didn't follow it exactly. It was good because we had all of the ingredients already which would have been really expensive otherwise. But I made a talapia fish with an Asian dressing and panko breadcrumbs which was ok. I also made some sauteed fresh green beans with sesame seeds and then my favorite an Asian noodle salad with snap peas. That was delicious and will make that again and add a few things.

Yeah so Aaron and Grace both went down for a nap at 2 but Aaron did not sleep at all! He kept banging on the wall and cooing and then he would fuss and I went in once and gave him his lion and his paci again. Then the next time I went in and changed a poopy diaper and I thought for sure he would sleep then because he hates sleeping in a yucky diaper-but no. Finally I just got him up. Not sure what his deal was. Oh and the other night by the way he did not get sick so I am thankful for that. He did fuss like I said but then I didn't hear a peep out of him the rest of the night. So tonight he was so fussy that he went to bed at 730 and he was ready for it. Here he is with his lion.

This is the ladder off of Aarons firetruck. As you can see it has a little present in it. Those are broken crayon pieces that I think were meant to be some sort of cargo. Nice.

K and I are going to try to plan a date night for Saturday, I think it will be something we both really need. There are lots of things going on right now and hopefully the stress level will be lessened for us by Friday. We are excited for new things coming.

Monday

Hey all, I started to do this post last night and got all my pictures uploaded and then the laptop died and I couldn't be bothered to go get the cord from the living room. Normally the plug is our room but it migrated to the living room and hasn't made it back yet. These first 2 pic I took the other day, actually I don't really remember when I took all of these but can guess within the last 5 days. Grace here is enthralled with Iron Chef America which was on while I dusted our room. Go figure she actually watched it for a little while...more interesting than smiling for the camera. The little bear here is on the move again, holding on to everything until its time to speed crawl away. (Which is why it's a blurry picture) He still has no desire to walk. Although K did get him to take a couple of steps on his own, but only by walking while holding his hands and then slipping his finger out of Aaron's grasp.

Grace is rediscovering her playdough again and can play with it for a little bit. She loves to roll it out real thing and make shapes out of the 'stencils'. I have to get her some more playdough tools for Christmas.

She looks so much like her dad, little cutie pie. She sure is a whiz.

Here is the little bear waking up from his nap. On Sunday he actually slept until 7am straight through! It was great. He hasn't had anymore 5am or early wake up calls lately and I am beginning to think that when he does do that he may be teething...because we discovered another tooth popped through! So now he has one on the bottom and one on the top!

Look at that face, it sure does look grumpy doesn't it? But I think it might have been the beginning of a smile. I took about 30 pictures before I gave up and finally picked up the poor child from his crib.

Cookie Monster! I made chocolate chip cookies and let the kids have one for their after nap snack yesterday and this little darling was all over it! Cookies in both hands and melted chocolate all over his face! And once again here he is giving me his serious face. I think both kids know when the camera comes out, one is a ham the other is like no way mom!

In 3 short weeks my boy is going to be 1 years old! I can't believe it, and we have another one on the way. Last night when I was uploading these pictures I was looking for my Sept. 2011 file and found Sept 2010 first. In the front of the file was pictures of me pregnant with Aaron. Boy was I pregnant, but in a good cute way! lol I can't wait to see what the next one is going to be like.

So today we met up some friends and went to the zoo. We had a great time and Grace sure does love older kids. Aaron was so mellow too especially for missing his morning nap. I tried skipping his morning nap on Friday and had hoped for a long afternoon nap but that didn't happen. Today it did though! He fell asleep in the car on the way home (about 1:30) and slept until 4pm! It was great and I got to have a nap too, although I started freaking out that something had happened to him because he never sleeps that long. The one good thing about Aaron is that he has become easy to take out of his car seat asleep and then lay back down. Grace is always kind of bad at that. Half the time he stays asleep and if he does wake up while I am walking him in he will fall back asleep.

I am a little worried though that he might be getting sick. He kind of burped/spit up three times within like 20 minutes this afternoon before dinner and I was afraid to feed him dinner. Neither one of my kids have ever thrown up because they were sick and I could just see myself glad for a long nap because I would be up with him all night tonight. So I am praying he is fine and just had the burps. He ate his dinner down fine. He had yummy chicken from a quesadilla and rice. And seemed fine after but I am praying still!

K is out of town again for 3 days so we are on our own tonight and tomorrow but he will be back on Wednesday. We miss him!

We decided to officially cancel out Netflix this weekend and are going to try Blockbusters program that is similar. We didn't like that they were going to have 2 separate companies to do the streaming and the mailed dvds. We already ordered some movies and it sees that they have more selection already. And we like that we can take them back to the store instead of mail them. So if we want to go pick up a movie for Grace we can, plus we have 2 out at a time. I think that is the gist of it. Grace is so into the Lion King right now. Whenever she seems promotions or a commercial for it she goes, "My tiger movie!" Especially if she sees a commercial because she doesn't really understand what a commercial is. She just wants me to put it on for her. We may go take her to see it in the theaters, we will have to see if someone wants to babysit Aaron because for sure I am not taking him!
The Briggs update: We took him to his special appointment for his eyes and basically got stronger medicine to help clear up his eyes. It started working right away and we have a follow up appointment in a couple of weeks. We will see how it goes, the drops are cheap and neither was the appointment for that matter, but the poor dog can see again. The hard part is remembering to give him 2 different eyes drops in the morning and night in each eye. K has been the one in charge of that task but when he is away I have to remember to do it.

So far with this pregnancy I have been feeling ok, it could be a lot worse I know. It also seems that I am more yucky feeling at night. I get all sloshy and can't eat a big dinner. I have to sleep on my back and kind of up on the pillows, which does not bode well for the long term. That was how I was with Aaron at the end.

Speaking of Aaron I hear him...he is fussing and waking up slowly and it has only been and hour I see. Wait... maybe he will put himself back to sleep. My poor boy...I love you son.

Our news

So we have some news in our family that we are happy to announce! If you haven't already guessed from the photo above we are expecting our third and final child. The baby is due April 21st, although if I am lucky then this one will be early like the other 2! I am 9 weeks along and feeling decent enough. A little queasy and tired. I have found with this one that the more frequently I eat the less yuck I feel. So I have been trying to keep my tummy full. Although I already feel like I can't drink a lot or I start feeling sloshy and almost heartburn-y.

We get to hear the heartbeat at the next checkup next month.

We love you!

2 Things...

...Grace always says these days.

1.) "Whats the matter mommy?"
Nothing Grace I am just eating my lunch, or sitting here, or thinking or whatever!

2.) "Why?"...................5200 times in one sentence! And then again in the next sentence, especially when we are driving.

Grace-isms

Grace has been so full of funny thing lately that I want to try and write them down so I can remember later. We went for a walk after dinner and Grace had a ball she was so funny. At one point we passed a house that had a little dog on the front porch and it was barking. She started barking back at it. "Arf Arf!" So we chuckled to ourselves and slowly walked past the house. I said to Grace, "Are you talking to the dog?" She nods. "What are you saying?" I asked
"Arf." she replies, like duh mom.
And tonight for dinner she decided she needed to have her own bowl of clam chowder. Yum! But really what 2 year old do you know who likes clam chowder. So much so that she waited to eat it because it was piping hot at first.
We popped the Utah game on right before bed to check the score. Grace says, "I wanna watch football." Of course she didn't really want to go to bed either. So we taught her to say, "Go Utes!"
She is so cute and smart!

My poor baby

So Aaron has had the worst diaper rash, poor thing. I had thought it was a lot better on Thursday night, but it wasn't. And because we use disposables when he has a diaper rash so we can use diaper cream he also gets like a red ring on his leg from the material that goes along the leg of the diaper. Poor boy, he just screams when we change him and a few times we have just taken him into the shower to get the rest off. Last night we made chili and cornbread but I only gave him a banana and cornbread for dinner because I don't want him to have any rich food that is going to upset his tummy. Love my boy and hope his little bottom heals fast!

11 months and what not

Aaron turned 11 months old on Tuesday! These 1st few pictures of him wearing red and blue are from awhile back I just forgot I had taken them. He is sleeping better, he hasn't been waking up in the 5 o clock hour. Well except that one time! He still goes to bed great and he still wakes up on the wrong side of the bed every single time. But I have a new theory about that...the last week probably, I wait and let him cry it out. And a lot of times he will either go back to sleep or quiet down. I found that when I went in there and got him he was still sort of asleep and despite me holding him he was still just as ramped up as if I would have left him. So especially for naps he has to cry it out. I love this picture of him standing. He stand so good, and has no problem climbing at all! He has figured out how to crawl up onto the fireplace hearth and the picnic table downstairs and has even stood straight up once on the picnic table. He loves water and loves playing in the dogs bowl or the toilet. New rule in our house shut the bathroom door. Grace never found that quite so fascinating. lol

These pictures were taken on Tuesday. He still has no interest in walking despite his parents trying to bribe him with M&M's. He will make his body go slack if he doesn't want to walk. The funny thing is when we "walk" with him and hold his hands and kind of support his body weight he does really good and walks pretty well and lately both K and I have said we could almost just let go and he would just keep walking except for his death grip on our fingers or that he realizes that we are about to do that!

His little bottom tooth is coming up more and more and I think he maybe getting the one next to it soon. I thought I saw white in that spot below his gums. It's hard to tell because he hates being messed with and you have to pull his lip down and get his tongue out of the way.

This is him voicing his opinion about now wanting his picture taken with me! lol He was mad at me for something I can't remember what. He pulls such sad faces, you think I had told him he would never eat ice cream again! In fact the last night I reheated some meatloaf and mashed potatoes I had made for dinner. The kids had both enjoyed that meal when I had made it, however Aaron was not having it last night. I also gave him some peaches to get his appetite going. He ate all those up and then just sat and whined in his chair. At one time I tried to feed him a piece of meatloaf and he made like he wanted to pick it ups himself, so I let him take it. He promptly tried to toss it overboard. I was like, "Aaron No!" He looks at me staring unsure of what to think for just being chastised, then his face starts puckering up, his eyes brim with huge crocodile tears, that bottom lip pokes out and he starts wailing!

K and I both thought it was hilarious, he is so dramatic. You can kinda see in this picture the beginning of the sad face.

But here is the happy face. Sorry some of these are so blurry it was really hard getting pics of him on the go.

Here with mommy and unsure of what to think about what I am doing. Last night Aaron got whole milk for the first time and then again this morning he had a little bit. But I am afraid that he is going to have to wait a little bit more I think. He has had the worst diapers and his bum is on fire. He has been a sad boy today because his bottom hurts. The pediatrician had said 11 months instead of a year was ok, in order for him to gain some weight, but it looks like he has either had too much or it doesn't agree with him.

My precious little girl helper. She had an awesome nap and woke up a sweaty mess, but you can see all those tomatoes, I used those to make my homemade sauce. There was a little bit more that you can't see. She loves to help in the kitchen both mommy and daddy.

I had to post this picture because she seriously posed for this picture. She made this face and held it for a minute. I don't know what she was thinking but she looks like a hot mess! Literally! She is such a funny girl!

Actually getting a cute smile from her.

And her poor knees. You can see how we have had multiple skinned knees on both legs. We picked up some Vitamin E oil so put on her knees. I would hate for her to have scarred up knees the rest of her life from just learning how to move around in her own body!

Oh my goodness the "Pack Pack!" So I told Grace a little while ago that we could get her a backpack to take on our trip to SD in Nov. So on Monday she mentioned it and I thought yeah we aren't doing anything today and school is pretty much in session so we should be able to find some on clearance. Well we went to Target and found this super cute rolling "pack pack" (just like daddy's briefcase) it has a handle you pull up like rolling luggage. (She has her hand on it) She LOVES this backpack. She melted down at naptime and bedtime that day because she wanted to play with it so bad. She is going to be thrilled when she actually gets to roll it around the airport and have her stuff inside.

Ok so here is the picture of the chicken fontina I made. I tried this new recipe from Giada once before but this time I improvised and changed it up a lot. This time I deglazed the pan using some leftover reisling (homemade from K's cousin) and used all of our fresh tomatoes. Garlic, onions, a bay leaf some other seasonings and some heavy cream all made this delicious. 2 things I will do differently next time is puree the tomatoes (I normally do but had totally forgotten to this time and it was a bit chunkier although still good than I prefer) and then let it thicken up a little longer. Because I had to cook the tomatoes first this dinner took forever so everyone was starving. And of course my new favorite cheese is a Fontina-it melts so good and is just yummy! You can see my husband has a clean plate and is mopping up all the goodness with a piece of bread.

Nothing else going on here we are just sitting back and trying to be patient as certain things work themselves out. Some things just take a little time if you know what I mean and so we have to wait a couple of weeks before checking back in. I can't believe my baby boy is almost one year old, boy does time fly. I am enjoying September, we still have nice warm days but the they aren't nearly so unbearably hot. The nights are cool and I am in the midst of party planning for Aaron. Hope everyone has a good weekend its almost here!!!

I blogged too soon...

I shouldn't have mentioned that Aaron was done waking up in the 5 o clock hour...5:40 this morning was awfully dark.

Glad power is back on in California, that was pretty crazy ridiculous!

Briggs is currently at the vet with my hubby.

Next week will be an interesting week for hubby. He has some things going on that could be very exciting for him and a change for the family. Prayers for him on Monday for sure and possibly another day.

Time to go start the dishwasher...

I am still lazy..

I haven't plugged our camera in to charge and then I forget it needs charging. Then I go to get the camera to get some updated pictures of the kids for my blog and turn it on and realize of course that I haven't charged it since...I can't remember when. Daddy has been home now and is done traveling for awhile. Yay! We are glad to have him around for awhile.

I have to say that I am looking forward to fall and winter. I really do love the change of seasons. I am already thinking about soups and hearty winter foods. I have been craving chili and we have everything to make it, it just is waiting for the right time.
Let's see what are the kiddos up too? Grace is doing well with her potty training, although I need to do better about making sure she goes potty before naps and bedtime because we are still waking up with wet diapers. The poor girl is learning how to use her body you can tell because she is constantly skinning her knees up. Every time her knees are pretty much healed up, she trips and skins them again. She just did it again last night. Poor thing, she is such a little trooper. (Ok I love this picture of the two of them, I was trying to get Aaron to smile so I wasn't looking at Grace and she has the sweetest smile in the background)

Aaron is my opinionated child. Well Grace is too, but Aaron is constantly whining about something or grunting or crying. He has the sweetest smile, I just wish I could see it more often! He hardly ever wakes up cooing and happy, he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed almost every time. Oh and he is finally getting his 1st tooth. Bottom front of course. So I am sure that has been contributing to his whining and I am looking forward to that stopping. Hopefully. He is such a weird eater though, he has to wait for all of us to be done eating it seems before he tucks in and starts going to town. But if he likes something he sure does chow down. He ate a ton of Mac and Cheese tonight. When he gets to be Grace's age, I can see already the food bill going up. Already I starting packaging my ground beef in 2lb packages because we no longer can eat just 1 pound as a family. He has been getting better at not waking up at 5am anymore. Now he wakes anywhere from 6-7am. I nurse him still in the morning because I can usually get him to go back to sleep that way (except for this morning of course) and then he will sleep until almost 8 which is great. His naps on the other hand, they are still short. They are about 1hr each, and the last 2 days I have been sticking him back in bed again at dinner time around 5 because he just crawls over to my leg, pulls himself up and starts whining at me. He is tired, but oh so stubborn. Soon we are going to have to switch him over to the convertible car seat because I think he is going to be too long for his infant seat. My little dishwasher raider here, he likes to climb into the dishwasher, to my dismay, so I stuck the butter dish I use as a giveaway tupperware on his head. He thought it was funny.

Of course then Little Miss Cheese and Ham wanted to be just like her brother and stuck the strainer on her head. Silly girl.

Aaron is still not interested in walking. I really hope he is walking by Thanksgiving because we are going to Glamis to go camping and it would be so much better. He pulls himself up and stands straight up all the time, and he will walk along the couch more now. In fact in one of the pictures above he was just about to do that. But whenever I am holding his hands and try to support him walking he sinks right down to his little diapered bottom and starts his crawling.

Tomorrow Daddy is taking Briggs to the specialist to have a look see at his eyes. The poor dog is going blind, the other night I watched him run straight into the side of the house because he thought he had turned the corner to go up the stairs and come inside. So he ramped up like he was going to run up the stairs kinda fast ya know. I saw it coming and was like No Briggs No! Poor dog at least he has a hard head, and it didn't seem to bother him. It's just hard because with toys all over he is forever tripping on them and has knocked Aaron over a couple of times. Nothing seriously that Aaron hasn't done himself, but we just feel bad. I am not sure there is anything we can afford to do but we are checking it out.

I think I may take the kids over to the farmers market tomorrow to get out of the house. I can't wait for the weekend!

LOVE and HUGS!!