ice storm

One thing that I surprisingly have fallen in love with while here in Ohio are ice storms. The first one I experienced was while catching the bus down to campus for my internship our first winter here. We pass by a golf course on the way, and the sun was shining. It was absolutely breathtaking to see the sun shining through all the branches of the trees - it reflected light in every direction possible and completely had me mesmerized. I had yet to feel that winter was beautiful here in Ohio until that moment. 

That one single memory has sustained me through subsequent snow and ice storms we have had. There have been more sun-shining-on-the-ice days, and I try to soak them in. We woke up to our first ice storm of the winter this morning, and with the first glance out the window I had that craving to go outside and take a picture. Here are a few that I took.

It amazes me that water can freeze like this.  

The brick wall outside our back door was covered by ice. Seriously?! So cool!

 Take a look at the small cable holding up our little bird house. All the telephone wires are covered as well, with hundreds of little icicles hanging down.

I love how each icicle is unique and marvelous. I love how it invites the light into itself. And I love how it continues to change shape as it grows and melts. Always changing and always beautiful. 

Love it! 

If only I were adventurous enough to take L on the ice skating rink outside our front door. Maybe this afternoon? We shall see.

the big brother

It's really easy to write post after post of Lady-LE. There are simply so many "new" things she is doing that are fun and exciting AND she holds still long enough for a picture. But. L does a ton of "new" things too these days (mostly related to new words/phrases/sentences) and I wanted to document a few.

{I REALLY want to edit this and lighten it up! Grrr ...}

{About Food}

-very particular about his PB&J's. So particular in fact, that he won't eat them ANYwhere except at home. It's that homemade jam goodness that he's fond of. (Quite the jam-snob)

-recently learned to drink the milk from his cereal bowl and thinks it's the coolest thing in the world
-obsessed with "Daddy Cereal" which is Quaker's Oatmeal Squares with a Hint of Brown Sugar. Try it. You'll love it.
-hates ice cream
-When asked what he wants to drink he says, "Cup of juice. After cup of juice, cup of milk. After cup of milk, cup of water." And he will hold me to that exact order.
-would eat yogurt, cantaloupe, fruit snacks, and graham crackers all day long if possible

{About Talking}

-has full conversations with himself: "apple juice or milk. Which would you like? Milk? Yes!"   "play a few more minutes? Ahh ... I don't think so. Please? Yes!"  

-needs to talk on the phone every time it rings because it's usually Daddy calling to say hi
-started saying "No thank you" on his own
-is really good at using pronouns for his age

-loves to help mommy say prayers (as in he says it first and I repeat him) - and says the most darling prayers in the world.

-his first prayer all by himself went like this: "Heavenly Father, we thank thee for Jesus. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." Totally made me cry.

-Came up to me today and said, "I miss Daddy and that makes me sad." {we're working on using words like sad and mad instead of throwing tantrums} Broke my heart!

-Honestly is talking so well and I am constantly amazed at the sentences that he throws together. Using a lot more clarity in his words too.

{Totally Random}

-favorite letters are M, W, and A. He can recognize every letter in the alphabet without having them in order. Still working on numbers.

-hates to share

-loves to 'play football' while we watch a game. This consists of standing in a ready position, and once the play begins, he does this shuffle/stutter step while turning in circles, then throws up whatever he's holding (typically his bear) and falls down when he catches it. Pretty sure that's how the pros do it too.
-still takes and honestly needs one nap a day
-completely not potty-trained. It's not looking too close in our future either.
-loves animals - all kinds
-carries his trains around in one of my casual purses everywhere.
-loves to read books

He is such a darling big brother. Very possessive of Lady-L, and tries to defend her already when he sees other kids getting close to her. Yesterday in the car she was crying pretty hard on our way home from playing, and he kept saying "It's okay Lady-L (although her real name), we're almost home. We're almost home." It was sweet and tender and melted my heart. I'm pretty sure my heart melts on a daily basis with these two kids. What a beautiful life I have!

I love this boy! 

snow days

Remember L's fear and hatred toward the snow last year? Oh boy am I glad those days are over! 

A friend invited us over to play in the snow a few days ago, and I am proud to say that L enjoyed it. Horray! 

It still takes him a while to warm up to it, and he even started crying the first time I sat down in the snow (because I got "dirty" he said). But with enough coaxing and peer pressure he soon learned how to throw snow up in the air and loved it. So did I.

 Cute J who was not afraid of the snow at all! 

 Hard-working S was trying to mow the backyard. The snow definitely slowed his progress.

Our good buddies who played with us.

 This is soon after the discovery of throwing it in the air. His entire face would light up and he would be all smiles and do it again. At one point I was videotaping him, and he kept walking towards me with a handful of snow ready to launch. He eventually had me cornered in the yard and I had to turn off the camera and run - this kid is dangerous! 

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

{or at least on my hat and mittens - I know. Doesn't rhyme, but it's still cute.}

The girls stayed inside and had a grand ol' time being warm and cozy. 

Oh man does this make me excited to have a yard someday.

blue bear reunited

We were pleasantly surprised with the return of one beloved member of our family today. He returned from a brief stay in Michigan and has been sorely missed by this little boy everyday since. Now if we could only have the other member of our family return home soon (the one who's on the other end of the phone conversation), then our little family will be complete again. 

None of us like being separated very much! 

six months

You would think that I would be writing this post after a good night's rest, considering the fact that Lady-L is six months old. Hate to disappoint (really, I do. Trust me.), but I'm going on a total of four hours of sleep because of this lovely lady. Fever, you ask? No. Ear infection or otherwise inflicted? No. Teething? Perhaps. Refusing to sleep longer than 3.5 hours without additional feedings? Yes. And you know what hurts even worse than the droopy eyelids and significant drop in patience levels? The fact that I did this to myself. Ouch.

You see, she was a great sleeper right from the get-go. She was consistently putting in a 6-7 hour stretch each night followed by shorter segments. She got slightly congested, and then we left for our six-week vacation adventure. Which translates to paranoid-mom in the middle of the night with the feed-her-quick-to-keep-her-quiet mentality so she won't wake up other family members sharing the room or hallway or house. So now we're all settled back home, and she hasn't slept longer than four hours in over a month and it's catching up on me.

Either way, sleep deprived or not, she's still darling and wonderful and my favorite. So here are her recent happenings.

New Stats: will update next week after Dr's appointment

Few Favorites:
-Adamantly refuses bottles and I'm becoming desperate.  I'm leaving her for over a week at the end of February and this doesn't give me much time to force teach her. L had no problems whatsoever with bottles (or any kind of eating for that matter), so I'm way out of my league here. Need counseling.
-Got her first tooth right after Christmas
-Loved watching all her cousins and always having someone hold her while visiting family
-Has eaten her first rice cereal and baby foods. It still takes her a bit of spitting out to remember how to keep her tongue out of the way, and every once in a while she shows a strong dislike for peas and carrots - but I can typically still feed them to her the next day or so. She maintains a pretty consistent love-hate relationship with food.
-Needs to be sitting up able to see things all the time
-Absolutely loves being sung to, especially "Here's a Ball for Baby." She giggles every time I do the peek-a-boo part.
-Snorts when she's laughing really hard
-Struggles to sleep - period - if she's not swaddled. She's quite the escape artist too, which aggravates the problem.
-Impresses me with how chill she is most of the time. Quite the content little baby!
-So close to rolling over, but not yet.
-Getting more stable at sitting on her own, but still needs very close hands.
-Quite skilled with the pacifier. If she can find it with her hands (which means if her flapping arms just happen to come across it) then she can usually figure out how to get it back in. Keeps her busy for a while, which is pretty cute to watch.
-Short attention span while doing anything (eating especially)
-LOVES it when I squish her face with kisses over and over again. Guaranteed smile, with a chance of giggles.
-Smiles even after being tackled by big brother in a hug. They have this mutual understanding I think.
-No longer falling asleep on-the-go like she used to. Sad day. Looks like we'll be needing to stay home more often which sounds like torture to a 2.5 year old (and his mom).
-blows raspberries all.the.time.
-learned how to eat her toes

All in all, she is wonderful and I love her to pieces!

solid

While out in Utah, we decided to start Lady-L on solids. An entire month later than we did with L. Oh well, second kid right? Between two sisters, we probably took over a hundred pictures of the event (she was quite the crowd pleaser), but I have none of them. Forgot to save them onto my hard drive before leaving. Bummer! Mom, a CD of pictures is coming, right?

Anyway, here's a link to my younger sister's commentary of the event on my parent's blog. If you'd like to see pictures, she has plenty! And if you don't take the time to go look, I won't judge. Just know that you're missing out on one dang cute baby if I do say so myself. So cute, in fact, that I can't stop kissing her cheeks. Love her!

Lady-L's first food extravaganza

needing updates

So after six weeks of traveling and being with wonderful family and friends, I have a lot to catch up on. However, I only have some of the pictures, and don't have any photo-editing resources with me. Isn't it silly that I'm scared of putting un-edited pictures on my blog? I do it all the time, but that's when it's by choice. Now that I don't have a choice, I feel torn and look at every picture with this awful judgment of "are you good enough". Lame, I know. But until I get all the pictures and my photo-programs back, I will do my {almost} best at working on those updates. While blogging is not a priority, I still need to document something of these past few months for my own memory-sake.

So please forgive the awful lighting and the extra details that would be cropped out - but I just had to include a picture of this darling. She is quite the eater and proud of it. See you all again soon!

temple square

My parents had four tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir mini-concert with David Archuleta on a Sunday morning, so we made a little trip out of it and stayed overnight in SLC Saturday. We visited Temple Square Saturday night with a few thousand best friends, and had a wonderful time. 

There is something about this place that makes my entire heart want to burst with happiness. I felt absolutely giddy walking through the conference center courtyard, holding hands with L, looking at the temple. The entire time walking around I felt like I couldn't soak it in fast enough, and that maybe if I held my breath time would slow down {note to self: doesn't work}. The peacefulness of the temple combined with the excitement of Christmas had me completely mesmerized.  

 It had L mesmerized too. We could sing any primary song in the book, except I Love to See the Temple until we actually saw the temple! It was so cute. And once we saw it, we sang it loud and clear. He kept talking about it over and over again and that led into talking about the Logan, UT temple which we would see on a some-what daily basis while visiting UT. It was wonderful to see him recognize and appreciate the temple for being such a special place. 

 {photo credits go to my talented little sister K who was kind enough to snap pictures for me while I dealt with my kiddos. Thank you K!}

Oh I had wonderful dreams of getting this perfect-sacred-feeling-eternal-glimpse-kind-of-a-shot with my kids and I in front of the temple. Why do I even let myself daydream about things like that?! The above picture perfectly illustrates how L was the entire night {and every other day of his life for that matter}. Going way too fast for the camera and not slowing down for my heart's desire. Could I ever imagine how much I would love that little boy? Maybe next time we go to temple square - with Daddy this time - we'll get that picture I'm dreaming of. :)

After we had exhausted ourselves we made it to the hotel. I love how hotel rooms seem to bring out this hyper side of kids - both L and Lady-L were happy as could be at 11:30pm. It didn't hurt that Grandpa B gave them lots of special attention either.

The next day was short, and quite enjoyable. The adults all went to the Music & the Spoken Word followed by the mini-concert while I stayed and watched the kids in the hotel room and got a chance to catch up with one of my dear friends and her fiance {mad that I didn't snap a picture}. Then we drove home and all tried to recover from the lack of sleep. What a fun last-minute trip! Thanks Mom & Dad!

utah snow

We get to spend a couple weeks here in UT with my side of the family for the holidays, and have had some good snow days.
These pictures are for two people in particular (Ry & brother D) who both live and die for good snow days. Loving you both and sending snowy thoughts your way!

(a scene on the way to the airport to pick up some cute cousins & their beautiful momma)

Okay, you can't see the snow in the background, but his smile just melts my heart. 

I promise there are more pictures to come. Especially of those cute cousins and sis-in-law. We're definitely missing our hubbies but having a good time together.
Let it snow let it snow let it snow!! 

five months

I didn't do a picture this month. I had all intentions to do a make-shift one with a random stuffed animal out in CO, but I just never did. So here's a picture of her closest to her fifth-month birthday.

Few Favorites:
-Went swimming for the first time and loved it. This girl loves the water.
-enjoying the bumbo chair that Pop Pop found on craig's list
-loves to be held close whenever she's fussy
-still being swaddled
-maybe 13 pounds or so?
-such a content little girl
-looks like a half-pint compared to cousin C who's just one month older than her
-loves the game peek-a-boo
-almost rolling over
-loves to look at the lights on the Christmas tree
-enjoying time at Nonnie & PopPop's house

colorado celebrations

Life is wonderful. Hard, challenging, real, but wonderful. 

We've had the chance to spend some time with family, and here are some fun pictures of the past week.

 So sweet to watch a big brother in action.

Fun cousins to play with (and getting along very well might I add). 

 Lots of smiles and sweet faces from lady LE.

 Nonnie kisses. 

 Delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

 Christmas celebrations a little early while we're all together.

Hours of playing games together. 

Lots of time to play on the floor together.

And my little boy jumping on my back asking for me to take pictures of him instead of the trains we were playing with. Can't refuse that! Gotta love him. 

In all of life's whirlwinds, our families give us the greatest joys. I am grateful for the trials we face that make us stronger, the lessons we learn that make us wiser, and the fun we have that makes us happier.

Life is wonderful!

talk about a comb-over

After doing the final rinse I sat her up and just had to capture the moment on camera. Oh man this girl has some crazy hair. 

4 months

Wow time is flying. Four months old and totally lovin' life! 

New Stats:

13 lbs. 8 oz. (48%)

24.5 in. (61%)

A few favorites:

-Drools and blows raspberries all day long

-Gets to a point when she's tired but trying to fight it, and she starts talking like crazy making all sorts of noises. It's adorable.

-Sitting in the bumbo now and loves to watch us

-Weening herself from the swing - she really doesn't care for it anymore.

-Refuses a bottle with vengeance. 

-hair is finally laying down a little bit. No more electrocuted baby hair! Now she just has thinning issues.

-Technically happened the day after she turned four months, but she found her feet and it's an automatic reflex now to grab her toes and hold on tight. I can't wait till she learns how to pull them in the eat them - so cute! 

-Even with her average weight, she still has some good squeezable thighs with rolls in them. My favorite.

-Loves to smile for new people, and is giggling a lot. I've even gotten lucky enough to hear a belly laugh a couple times.

-the cutest penguin for trick-or-treating and the prettiest tinkerbell for our ward halloween party, even without her wings

-did not appreciate all the chocolate in mommy's diet right after halloween

-experienced quite the reaction from her 4-month shots. Honestly was a completely different baby for two days straight. Screaming, not eating, not sleeping, just miserable. She's back to her sweet, quiet, darling self and I couldn't be happier.

-absolutely loves bath time

-and of course, fully supports the Buckeyes. 

{She's wearing this onesie at age four months. Her older brother outgrew it by two months. What a big difference between them!}

Lady LE is such a sweet baby. We are blessed beyond measure by her calm personality and demeanor. She typically sleeps well at night, usually around 11-12 hours total at night waking up twice to eat. She takes naps super easily swaddled up, and still sleeps on the go if we're running around doing stuff. And I love how little she still is. I love her cuddling into me, and I love her pushing away from me to try and explore a little. It is so fun to watch her grow and develop, especially since I know more of what to expect. The anticipation is often just as exciting! We love our darling little girl. 

sunday fun

We took some fun photos of lady LE a couple weeks ago and even though I'm incredibly behind in blogging, I looked at these again this morning and just had to share them! I really have a hard time deciding which one I like best, I think she is perfect in all of them!

 {I love how you can see the slightest bit of a dimple. Yup - she got that from me.}

I think this last one might win for me. Drool spot on her dress and all.