Apparently

A conversation between Carter and I in the car....

Carter: "Momma, it's stinky in here!"

Me: "Did you toot Carter?"

Carter: "Apparently."

I couldn't stop laughing!

Thanksgiving wrap-up

Olivia's 1st Thanksgiving



The menu





What wasn't pictured:
-cornbread stuffing
-rice and peas
-potato casserole
-green bean casserole
-pumpkin pie

Umm umm good!

Tonight, we are putting the kids to bed a little early and we are heading out on a date! Not sure where just yet but somewhere without our wee ones!

My cup runneth over

On this Thanksgiving, I have so much to be thankful for. I think about all the people who are celebrating Thanksgiving alone, without food, or away from their loved ones. I spent my Thanksgiving surrounded by family, with plenty of food to eat, and a full heart. I am so thankful for all the men and women who are serving overseas so that I may celebrate my own Thanksgiving in a free country. I pray for them all as they are away from those who they wish they could spend Thanksgiving with. This year, these are the things I am most thankful for:

1- The daughter we were told may be born with Down Syndrome was born perfectly healthy

2- Our adorable Carter with whom our lives would be incomplete

3- A new house in a new town, in a beautiful place, surrounded by new (and old) friends, and a fresh start

4- The closeness our move has given my relationship with my mom

5- The opportunity to spend Christmas with my dad

6- The closeness in my marriage that Theo and I have shared since Olivia's birth

7- The chance to leave my job and fulfill my dream of being a stay-at-home-mom

8- My family continues to be healthy (with several good praise reports over the past year)

9- My new appreciation for God's timing and his plans

10- Answered prayers

"Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalms 106:1 Lord, I have so much to be thankful for. My cup truly does runneth over. You have blessed me more than I could have ever imagined and infinitely more than I deserve. Thank you for loving me unconditionally!

"Don't look at me"

Note to self: Don't leave a toddler unsupervised in the kitchen with a jar of Nutella.

I was in the office just minding my own business when I heard Carter repeatedly say "Momma, don't look at me!" Well, this is a phrase he has been saying when he is doing something he knows we would not approve of. It wasn't until he said "Momma, don't look at me in the chocolate" that I jumped out of my chair and saw this:



No, I never leave my children unattended. Ahem. Then I figured the damage was already done...might as well take pictures of him, right?



The almost full jar now looks like this:


I had been baking in order to get ahead for tomorrow. So perhaps, in the midst of my baking, Carter thought the pumpkin pie called for a tablespoon fistful of Nutella :) Happy early Thanksgiving everyone!

Garden of the Gods part 2

Friday while the weather was nice, we decided to take Grandma and PopPops to the Garden of the gods. Neither one of them has been to Colorado before so we want to show them the beautiful sights here. This was Olivia's first trip here to but I don't she appreciated the beauty of it :) Maybe in time. Carter had a blast. When we went here over the summer with my mom, he was a little skiddish. But this time, he was climbing and hiking all over the place. We left then and headed to Old Colorado City. It was a good day. I think fun was had by all!

M&M (&M)

It has been a rough week in the P household. After Olivia got her two month shots, she started waking up every 2-2.5 hours at night to eat when she had previously been going at least a 6 hour stretch at night. I have been so exhausted but yet unable to nap. Yesterday morning, I was so tired I just cried. My poor husband is trying so hard to be supportive but there isn't a whole lot he can do with a breastfed baby. He did entertain the kids while I did manage to finally fall asleep for an hour yesterday before lunch. It's been more stressful too because his parents are in town for three weeks. Livie's room is right across from the guestroom so the first couple of nights, I kept her in our bed so she wouldn't wake them up. None of the three of us got any good sleep. So I called my mom, asked for advice, talked to a friend for more advice and finally decided to get some Mother's Milk Tea. I had decided to thaw out some breastmilk and was going to give it to her last night but we went out to dinner, didn't get home until late, and then I forgot to thaw it out.

Well praise the Lord, I didn't need to. She finally had a six hour stretch of sleep last night. I went in her room around 2 just to check on her because I hadn't heard any peep out of her for several hours. I also have to thank mylicon and miracle blanket, and mother's milk tea for their help too. It was the best night of sleep she and I had in weeks!I feel like a new person. I am hoping she was just going through a growth spurt. I bought a digital scale yesterday (an adult one) but it won't pick up her weight. So I weighed her while holding her and so did Theo and we got way different readings both times. Oh well, that option didn't work out as planned. She doesn't go back to the doctor until the middle of January but I will most likely call them in a few days and see if I can just check her weight just in case. I'm all paranoid after Carter falling off the growth curve at four months. But looking at my little chunky baby, it's hard to imagine she's not getting enough!

Ok, gotta run....Olivia is up from her nap and I'm enjoying having the house to myself for a couple of hours while Theo is at work and his parents are at church. I love my quiet time!

Like brother, like sister

My friend Mary got this little einstein playmat for me as a baby shower gift when I was pregnant with Carter. I am telling you, he spent hours on that thing! Something about all the bright colors and musical star would just mesmorize him for long periods of time.



Well, I finally unearthed the baby toys yesterday and low and behold found the star for the playmat. I put Livie on it for the first time today and she loves it just like Carter did.



Carter was busy having his own fun at the park. My friend Christine picked him up and took him sledding at our neighborhood park along with her two kids. I was so thankful for the break and enjoyed spending some one on one time with Livie Lou!

Thinking outside the box boppy

When I saw Olivia asleep on the couch a couple of days ago with her little tiny finger on her chin, I thought she looked like she was in deep contemplation....probably thinking about milk. That is her number one priority right now! She looked like a little angel.

As for our weekend, I'm not sure if real weekends exist anymore with Theo's new and crazy schedule. He did just have five days off but was back to work Friday, worked yesterday, works tonight and tomorrow night. So we just hung out around the house since we had been busy bees during his time off. Right now, it's Sunday morning, my two boys are outside playing in shoveling the snow off the driveway so Theo can get to work.





I'm inside blogging while Olivia is upstairs taking a nap. It's actually quiet in the house! That is a rarity these days. Ok, well as I was typing this, I saw our neighbor's wife outside shoveling snow so I felt a little pang of guilt about being all warm and cozy inside. Then Carter came in and asked if I could come out and play with him in the snow. That did me in. I put on the appropriate clothing, nonwaterproof boots, and with baby monitor in tow, I ventured outside. I felt bad for Theo doing all that work so after volunteering twice to help him, he finally handed over the shovel. I will admit, my motives were a little selfish...I figure I could get a heck of an arm workout by helping so I did. But then I got cold and tired and retreated back indoors where I am finishing up this post!

I spent the majority of the Saturday getting a heads up on Carter's school stuff. Since he's not in preschool this year, I am doing school with him at home. When I'm organized and prepared, I really enjoy doing it. So I'm trying to get everything ready in advance so our time goes more smoothly. This morning, I got in a quick yoga workout without Carter crawling all over me! Theo's parents are coming Thursday and will be here for three weeks so I will spend the rest of the week preparing for that!

Carter had a good week. I am trying so hard to set firm boundaries and follow through with what I say. One night this week, he refused to pick up toys and his punishment was no cartoons until he picked up his toys. Well, it was 24 hours without television before he finally realized that he should just pick him up or it might be a week before he gets to watch Little Einsteins again. So he picked up his toys with a little motherly direction. I endured several temper tantrums, whiny fits, and lots of begging and pleading and downright defiance. But I was proud of myself, I stuck to my guns and eventually he did what I asked him to do. Man, was I like this as a three year old? I can see my mom shaking her head YES! The rest of the time, he was sweet and asked repeatedly to if he could hold his baby! He loves Olivia and I love to see them together. He has done so remarkably well with her....way better than I had expected when I was still pregnant. I wonder what he'll be like with baby #3 (when baby #3 is conceived......which hopefully won't be for at least 9 more months!)

The Old West

Wednesday while we were enjoying daddy's time off from work, we decided to head south and check out a new town. When I checked the GPS, we saw there was a children's museum there so we decided to see what it was like. It was a pretty cool place with a western theme. They had a ton of arts and crafts for kids to do but Carter isn't quite old enough to appreciate those just yet. So I ended up making him some crafts but honestly, I think they would have turned out better if he had made them and I'm a pretty crafty person!






The cutest lil' cowboy I ever did see


After the kids museum, we headed to the adjacent building which was an art museum. I didn't take any pictures there and we didn't stay too long because Olivia was getting a tad cranky.



But it was a nice museum and some of the little paintings were going for $5000! I couldn't belive it!

Two Months Old

I can NOT believe my baby girl is two months old. Every month, I will probably start off every post that way. Time is flying by.

At two months old, Olivia is:

(updated) - ten pounds even and is 23 inches long. She's in the 25 percentile for weight and the 75 percentile for length! Maybe she'll be tall too like daddy and Carter.

-smiling and cooing all the time. As I posted about before, she loves being called "beautiful" and will smile almost every time.

-nursing about every three hours during the day (sometimes more frequently, sometimes less depending on her mood) and is still waking up at 2 a.m. for feeds and 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. for feeds! Hopefully by the time I post her three month update, that will be a thing of the past......wishful thinking most likely! :)

-likes to play on the floor and Carter holds up toys for her to look at

-takes a morning nap, a long after lunch nap (for 2-3 hours most days) and catnaps around dinner time. She is sleeping in her bed almost all the time now, for naps and at night! Yea!

-her cranky time is still from about 5:00-7:00 in the evenings. Usually, if I hold her, she is fine until feeding time but some nights no matter what we do, she's cranky!

-is starting to enjoy bathtime more. I sing to her while I bathe her and she smiles a lot to that

-is still wearing cloth diapers 90% of the time

-is in 0-3 months clothes, has outgrown her newborn pajamas but can still wear the pants and some shirts.

-still LOVES being carried around in the sling and I will be so sad the day she is too big to be carried in it :(

-had her first "caffeine" a few nights back when I was craving a real coke and I kid you not, was up every hour that night......won't make that mistake again!

-still has blue eyes and her hair is getting longer by the day it seems

-seems to enjoy baby einstein DVDs although she has only seen it once

-is still the most beautiful and precious baby girl I have ever laid eyes on (I will probably write that same thing every month too!)

Photo comparison:

Day at the park

Theo has been off work this week (except for a two hour meeting he had to go to yesterday) so we've been getting stuff done around the house and hanging out with the kiddos. Carter and I discovered a great park a couple of weeks ago which is about 10 minutes away from our house. So we decided daddy needed to come play at this park with us. It was a little chilly so we only stayed about an hour but Carter really needed to get out and burn off some energy. I mean really!



This is his favorite thing at this part. Round and round he goes...where he stops, nobody knows!







Something he can only play with daddy there since I'm not quite tall enough or strong enough to hold him up that high!



Mommy and Olivia hanging out while the boys play




_________________________________________
On this Veteran's Day, I would be remiss to not mention how grateful I am to all of our troops, past and present who given me the very freedom which allows me to live my life the way I choose. I can't imagine life without these freedoms and am forever thankful to our soldiers....especially the ones in my family!

Resemblance

When I saw this picture, I immediately thought about how much Olivia looks like Carter (but in a girly, more feminine kind of way!) Despite our rough night last night with Carter throwing up every 10 minutes for two hours, I love my kids more today than ever. I got some very bad news this morning of an extended family member losing their baby at 18 weeks. As a mother, especially a mother of a little baby, I can't imagine too many more things worse than that. My heart grieves for them. I don't know what I would do if I were ever in that same situation. So I made a promise to myself that I will cherish my children more and more with each passing day. I have been doing so much complaining about motherhood lately (i.e. sleep deprivation, cleaning up more vomit than I know what to do with, leaky, sore boobs, whiny temper tantrums,etc etc). And then I have to stop and remind myself that I am so blessed to be a mom. Thousands of women out there want to have a child, want to wake up all hours of the night to nurse a fussy baby, would love to discipline a cranky three year old, and experience all the good and bad things motherhood has to offer but can't. I am blessed. Lord, please help me appreciate all aspects of motherhood for my children are such a precious gift that I don't ever want to take for granted.