Mommy Heart

Tonight as we were driving back from Target the little stinker in the back seat piped up with this surprising gem "Mom, I sorry." I was a little shocked so I just listened. She continued "I sorry I was mean, I was mad at my princess kids." Still not quite sure what she is referring to I let her continue "I sad they left." After this I could figure out she was feeling sad because she had been "mean" after my piano students left this evening. I have been teaching them for quite a while and they live about 20 minutes away so they both come at the same time and switch off playing and having lessons. Alli loves both of them, especially Sally. So she had wanted Sally to play with her longer, but Sally had a soccer game and their parents were there to pick them up. So apparently a few hours later, Alli's poor little conscience was pricked that perhaps she had been mean to her madre. This completely melted my heart because a) she was so completely sincere in her apology b) she hadn't really even thrown a fit or anything and c) she continued to apologize and explain for another 2-3 minutes. She said she was just "really mad Max and Sally" left. Seriously I don't know where she learned her expressive words from, but it made me feel like even though she has her awnry moments, that perhaps she is learning to stay a nice girl and express her feelings. She genuinely wants to be a nice girl and 90% of the time she is, but especially lately she has these moments where her "alter ego" comes out and she is grumpy towards people-friends, strangers, family etc. She doesn't want to be friendly and will talk rudely to them. I have figured it was probably her way of expressing concern with change coming, but I haven't been sure. So sometimes she has me completely exhausted and frustrated, but I love being a mom more than anything. It changes you and helps you live life more fully and enjoy each moment. I love this little girl more than I thought possible, and I love watching her grow up yet I want her to stay the same always. She tells me thank you for the simplest things so it is so very difficult not to just give her whatever she wants (so most times I do seeing as her wants are pretty simple). It makes me think of our Heavenly Father and reminds me of the scripture about the importance of gratitude. I am sure He feels the same way, except more so, about us. I know He loves us, I have known that my whole life, but never more than now as I am a mom and have a glimpse of what He is like as a parent. He is completely patient with us, never losing that perfect patience, so when we apologize to Him for our wrong doings I am sure it melts His heart and He only wants to forgive us and have us be truly happy. When we sincerely thank Him for things-especially taking time to thank Him for the simple things He notices. At times I feel like I don't pay 100% attention to what Alli is telling me. I hear, but I don't LISTEN with my ears and my heart, but He always give us His full, undivided attention. In the car tonight I am so glad I truly listened to what she was saying, and I want to always give her my full attention so that she will know that what she has to say is important and that I will always be there for her. I feel like growing up my mom was always there to listen to whatever I had to say, she still is, and I am so thankful for that.

Finally

I am finally all caught up. The other two posts are finally "posted" but they are below the belly post. About a month ago we renewed our cell phone contract and got new phones. Both of our phones take way better pictures than our old phones did so half the time I get places and only have my phone. So here are the random pictures from the last few weeks. We went to the "Lil Buckaroo Rodeo" for Salem Days because Alli loved watching the Fiesta Days rodeo so much. She got to do the "money goat" where they let two (poor, undeserving) goats out into the arena with a whole bunch of 2 and 3 year oldsand then they do a separate one for 4 and 5 year olds. I think all of the kids were supposed to end up with a dollar, but Alli was too busy petting the goat after she caught up to it to care. Then she did the "stick horse" race with her imaginary horse. Next year we will remember to take the stick horse with us. She had a lot of fun hanging out watching the kids do there things and told us many times that she wants to do that so maybe we will have a little cowgirl? And I had just taken Alli swimming so that is my reason for why her hair is soo crazy!

Hanging out at the rodeo with daddy, enjoying my prize from "winning" the stick horse race-they gave every kid a certificate that said they won the race with a sucker attached.
Sitting so still getting all painted.
The finished product, I kind of had envisioned a different flower, but Alli was happy with it so that was all that mattered.
Watching "princess" fireworks.
Ready for the money goat.
Collecting candy at the parade with Blake, Dustin, and Bryn!
Then after the Salem Days parade they have a carnival of sorts (super small time, but cheap and fun for little kids) with a bunch of different booths. We went with my oldest brother and his family and the kids all had a great time getting their prizes. Surprisingly, Alli decided she wanted her face painted so she used some of her tickets for that. We didn't think she'd hold still the whole time, but she did great. She wanted a "princess" on her face so she settled for a pink and white princess flower. Later that night my mom bought a bunch of pizzas and we went down to the park and ate and watched the "pageant" which was really fun. They had a talent contest thing the night before and the top ten from the different categories performed. Alli loved sitting on Blake's lap watching. And when the fireworks came she was in heaven watching the "princess fireworks." Like always they did a great job with the fireworks show!!!

Ryan has had to go to Vegas a few times for some work shows the last month and seeing as it isn't the most fun place to go to just hang out, especially by yourself, we went with him the last time. Seeing as Ryan would be gone at the show quite a bit my mom came with us so I wouldn't just be hanging out by myself while he was gone. We ended up having a great time playing in our pool at the hotel and going to Circus Circus. It was a short trip, we left Sunday after church and were home early Tuesday evening. We stay at the Golden Nugget because it's a little more family friendly, is off the strip, and has an awesome pool-and it's cheap! The pool has a shark/fish tank in the middle of it and a waterslide goes through tank. Circus Circus is also pretty family friendly and they do circus act shows every half hour or 45 minutes. The only downside is you have to walk through so much of the hotel/casino to get from the parking to the kids area. It was fun though, we watched a girl a girl "dancing" with a net. So it was kind of like a trapeze, but it was a hammock?? She was really impressive though, she would flip around it and at one point was hanging from it using only her neck to hold her up.
Then we saw a juggling act that was decent, and finally we saw two brothers do "foot juggling." I had never seen the foot juggling before, but it was amazing! One brother would lay down on this special chair with his legs in the air and his brother would sit on his feet and then do flips and land back on his feet or land standing and then flip to sitting. Sounds kinda lame, but it was cool to watch. Only downside-one brother was a little too flamboyant so all of his effeminate leg kicks detracted from their actual performance. Between the acts Alli went on the little rides and did the games so it was a great way to spend an afternoon.

We had a few adventures driving from our hotel to pick Ryan up or getting where we needed to be-I am not a huge fan of driving with tons of cabs, and getting from the kids play place back to our parking spot. :) But it was fun.




Just a cheeser when I was trying out my phone, but I thought it was cute.

Getting some ice cream.
After the swimming, pre-rodeo.

And lastly, while we were helping my mom set some things up in her classroom my mom situated a little desk for Alli with all of her things in-papers to color and cut, extra crayons etc. Alli thought she had died and gone to heaven-seriously going to school is her dream!!

Growing Mama

I have two other posts that I have written, but they have videos in them and our internet is not working right so it won't upload the videos. So, this is what you get-kind of a poor excuse if you ask me.
*Disclaimer-the pictures are poor quality, I guess that's what I get for doing it myself. :) But seriously who wants to post pictures just of them standing sideways in the mirror period, let alone pregnant. I have waited to have Ryan take some when he is home, but I always forget-well at least all of the last 6 weeks since I last took a pic of myself.


There you have it, me and my growing baby (or belly!) at a few days past 27 weeks. I didn't record much of anything when I was pregnant with Alli and I have been curious about what it was like so I want to record more this time around. The rest of this post is random info about the pregnancy etc. - kind of boring for most people. So-size of baby: at the ultrasound a while back she was measuring one day smaller than I am so pretty much right on. Alli measured a few days larger, so not a big change there. At my appointment last week the doc said she was growing "perfectly" so hopefully that will continue. And to my relief, at my last appointment everything checked out great with my blood pressure and protein where the appointment before both were not where they are supposed to be. With Alli I was induced a week and a half early, after being on bed rest for almost 2 weeks because I had developed pre-eclampsia (toxemia or Pregnancy Induced Hypertension) and I hadn't shown any signs of that until at least after 30 or even 32-34 weeks so I didn't want to have any issues, any especially not so early. BUT-at least for now everything is good and hopefully it will stay that way. :) So I am a few days over 27 weeks and am feeling pretty good. My sciatic nerve has been bothering which is something I never had to worry about with Alli. From about 19-23 weeks it was pretty constant and super achy by night time. It is only in my right leg and has been flaring up more and more the last week or so. Sometimes it shoots pain down my leg, but it will be the most random movements that trigger it so I don't really know how not to move to prevent it. Other than that, we are both doing good! I am loving my doctor, he seems really personable and knowledgeable and very helpful. He encourages kids coming so Alli has come to some appointments-usually if Ryan comes. At the last one he had Ryan find the heartbeat and told Alli she needed to come next time so she could be his helper. She seems pretty excited about that. The baby is really active multiple times during the day, but especially early in the morning and late at night. I don't remember feeling/seeing Alli move this much this early. It seems like if she is moving it is all over pretty much at the same time so I see my stomach twitching in lots of spots. It seemed like Alli's movements were stronger when I could actually see them from the outside. It will be fun to meet her and see what her personality is like.

Livia

About two weeks ago we got a new, unplanned, addition to our "family" in the form of a kitten. Ryan came home from a business trip to find our neighbors out talking. They'd found this kitten by their old house and had decided to take care of it. Well upon bring it back to their house, their cat ran away. When she finally came back they decided they had to find a place for the kitten. We'd talked about getting a pet before, but it was usually a dog and we didn't want to have to worry about it all the time. I'm not a huge fan of strictly indoor pets, but we decided we'd give it a try for a few days and our neighbors told us to bring it back if it wasn't working out. So armed with a carrier, litter box, food, and some toys we brought our "baby" home. Well the next morning when Alli woke up to meet her new friend there was no going back.


* Apparently there is no pride or shame on this blog as you are seeing us in our lovely morning glory with beautiful hair and a prego belly that looks far better in real clothes as opposed to pajamas, but folks that is the reality of our life-we are not morning people and we were way too excited to let Alli play with her new friend to wait til we'd gotten ready.

We let Alli decide on the name all by herself. The first suggestion was "Allison-like me." We told her that would be a little too confusing.

Next she suggested "3" and we reminded her that is a number, not really a name, and we kind of gave up on the naming thing for a bit. A few minutes later she walked out of the mudroom and said "Olivia" and we figured that would be a do-able name so Olivia or Livia it is. And they have been such great friends (whether Livia wants to or not) since then. For the most part Alli does a great job being soft with her, but there is a fair amount of squishing going on from a certain energetic, demonstrative little 2 year old, but Livia is super playful so for the most part she does really well with all of her attention. There is some hiding under couches and beds, but that has lessened as she's gotten more used to Alli and as Alli's gotten better at playing and holding. Livia loves playing outside in the flowers and bushes and finding grasshoppers. She loves a mouse toy that she has and will catch the mouse really quickly so we're hoping that if there ever were a mouse (hopefully not in our house) that she'd be a good "mouser." All of her "stuff" is in the mudroom and the garage so she is only in the rest of the house when we are playing with her or she's playing outside, but she seems pretty happy with the arrangement and likes to play. As soon as she hears someone in the kitchen in the morning she starts meowing to come play with someone. And for some odd reason as soon as she hears the bath water running she runs into the bathroom so she can supervise Alli's bath.

We definitely hear a lot of "where is my kitty" from Alli and today she was pointing out Livia's "cute little paws". I am hoping that this will help Alli when the baby comes because maybe this practice holding a live animal will minimize the picking up of our baby by the head or appendage (which the cat has so "patiently" endured-don't worry it's always been a quick thing and she's yet to be actually hurt by any of the treatment) or dropping of the baby. We aren't exactly sure how old the cat is, we're figuring a little over 3 months?? She was already potty trained when we got her :) so thankfully we haven't had any extra messes and her shedding is virtually none!! So while we haven't ever really been pet people, we are now happy pet owners to a fun lil' Siamese cat.

2 and a 1/2-Almost.

This is super long with mostly random unimportant details that I want to remember. Don't say I didn't warn you! :)

One day while I was teaching piano and she was at her "friends'" house the 14 year old girl gave her a makeover. So when I showed up to get her, this is what I saw. She had make up on, her hair "done", fingernails painted-the works. She loves playing with

I haven't posted anything about what Alli is doing these days lately besides the run-down of what we are doing. She is almost 2 and a half (in another month or so) so here are some things about her. When I had my doctor's appt. Ryan attempted at a weight/height check so it's completely accurate I am sure. But she is 38 in. tall and weighs 32 lbs. I am guessing she is still tall, but who knows? She wears a size 9 (yeah seriously I think her feet are LARGE, but mine aren't exactly small so I don't know what I was expecting) shoe although some 9s are still big. :) She loves princess things, and even if something isn't really princess- it is to her. So we have a princess cat, princess play-do, princess cookies (especially if she is pretending to make them for us which happens frequently) etc. etc. She loves to weed outside-which I think is a hint that I need to do it more! She is really helpful and will sort the silverware and help put her laundry away a little bit. She loves learning and is always asking for "school time" which consists of us drawing "shapes" or doing puzzles. It doesn't necessarily have to be actually learning about anything real, but if I call it school time she is happy. She always wants to be 3 because that is when I told her she could finally go to school so if she is asked how old she is she will say 3 most times and is very aware that her birthday is in March and that is when she will be 3. She loves to sing and will often sing made up songs or her ABCs or Old MacDonald. Her favorite primary song is definitely Follow the Prophet because in nursery they walk around in a circle while they sing it so she will often have us do that during FHE. She still loves to play the piano and dance. She does a fabulous somersault (for real, it's usually straight and everything-better than mine) and after she does a few she wants us to do them-not so cute. I am not sure how she learned how to do these because I never showed her or told her. She is quite the little daredevil and has decided that riding her horse isn't quite exciting enough. I think in a parade she saw a vaulting school float with a girl doing tricks on a pommel horse so she decided to try things on her own horse?

She talks A LOT, which I love. Her little voice is a sound I really could never tire of-except maybe when she is screech/yelling random sounds. I love hearing her yelling "Mo-om, wher r yoo" if she can't immediately see me, and I love that she likes to go everywhere I am going. She is fully potty trained and has been since the beginning/middle of July. Luckily she has yet to have an accident at night so I am hoping she won't ever. :) She will race if you say "me first" to go to the bathroom because if she hasn't told me she needs to go in a few hours I will remind her. Some of the other phrases she uses are: where is it and most times more specific like where is my______, who buyed it, who made it (like in reference to food we have bought that she likes), Crack (I think she is meaning crap) when she drops something-awesome habit, attempting to break it, school time, dance time, there is my _______ (dance class, daddy's work, grandma's school, house etc), Spit it out (if we have eaten something of hers), that's cool, I bring this with me, Here, try some or I try some?, and a whole bunch of other random things. It is getting to the point that she can pretty much say whatever she wants/needs to so if she is trying to say something she will pause or maybe repeat the first few words a few times until she can think of the word she is looking for. She knows lots of animals and sounds, a few colors (consistently pink, blue, and mostly yellow), can count to ten randomly and pick out numbers 1, 2, and 3, and is really fixated with the letters of her name so she now knows they are A, L, and I. She likes for us to write her name, my name, and Ryan on lots of things, and most common shapes-circle, square, TRIANGLE-that's her favorite and the one she always knows and will randomly point out to me, star, heart. And she loves to cut paper and most other art stuff-painting, drawing etc. She is still very much a girly girl (although she loves playing sports, rough housing with daddy, and playing outside getting dirty) who loves nail polish, the color pink, picking out the bow/flower to match her outfit, and picking out her shoes or outfit. She will often tell us "I Say No" or "I Say Yes" or my favorite "I say Sure" and the i say yes/no is if we are trying to get her to do something she doesn't want to do and she is making her opinion even more known, and I love " I say Sure" because usually that is if we are asking her to do something or share something with us. She is very strongwilled and is much more likely to do something if we give her the options instead of telling her, then she is usually very very cooperative. She is a tough little lady who often gives us a run for our money, but I wouldn't have it any other way. She told us on the way home from church that her mommy and daddy love her and it melted both of our hearts. She is so sweet and loving and caring and has such a tender little personality. We were watching a t.v. show and she saw a baby left alone by its mommy and she was so concerned for the baby and wondered where it's mommy was. She will often ask where _____ mommy is if she sees a child by themselves. We talked about how some parents don't take care of their kids and she wanted those kids to come live with us. She is so excited for her baby sister to come play with her and she is excited to share her dolls with her. She will often randomly feel my tummy and "feel" the baby. She loves her daddy and loves going to visit him at work, but she is still mostly a momma's girl. She loves to "snuggle" at times, but is usually too busy doing who knows what.

Another Over-Do Update

A month ago we had some of our best friends up to visit from Texas. They went on a 5 week long road trip (and most of it Tanya was by herself while Jake was working-can we say super mom!) and were coming through Utah with a few days in between family things so we got to hang out. We went to the Bean Museum, the BYU creamery (since they used to live about 2 blocks from there), and the pool. And of course some amazing dress-up time had to be included in the fun as well. Thank you so much for staying with us for a bit and playing!! We had so much fun hanging out and working on the sewing projects. Tanya is completely amazing and she had a family reunion auction to get some things ready for so I think she made like 5 nursing covers in just a few hours! And I was the lucky recipient of a cover, burp cloth, and taggy blanket for little lady coming in November. Alli had so much fun having friends to play with! The funniest thing about this is we first became friends a few years ago when Jake and Ryan were doing summer sales so we would hang out together pretty much every day. Well last fall when they came up for a wedding and stayed a night Ryan was out of town and Jake had to stay in Texas for work, well the same thing happened again this time so whenever we are together it just seems like the summer again except now there are 3 more kids added to the mix. :) Thanks again for making time for us! Somehow I didn't even get a picture of "baby" Ian or Tanya. :(



Later that week we went to the rodeo for Spanish Fork's Fiesta days. I loved going to this growing up, and even though Ryan is pretty new to the rodeo scene, I think he is realizing just how much fun all this "hick" stuff is. Alli loved every part of it. From the mutton busting to the "racing horses" to the cows she thought every event was great and told us many times after that she wanted to go again. The only bad part was that I waited too long to get tickets so we were on the top row which is fine except there was a big gap between the floor slat and the seat part so the whole time my heart was in my throat thinking of what would happen if she fell through somehow-so she sat on a lap the whole time.


We also took her to the carnival sometime and let her go on some rides. They were seriously overpriced, but when we took her it was hardly busy at all so we definitely ended up getting our money's worth. She got to ride each of them for at least 5 minutes! It was crazy how long she was on there, she was completely ready to be off some of them-even though she loved them- as soon as they were done. She loved the carousel which wasn't a surprise, and the racing type cars the most. You can see in the pictures the motorcycle ride was fun-at first- and then reaching (because she thought she HAD to hold the handles instead of sitting up) hurt her back and arms so she was tired of the ride. And maybe the fact that it was at least 100 outside contributed to the "melting" factor??



And Ryan isn't a huge fan of parades, but he does like a few. Here he is teaching Alli the art of "candy gathering" and it was pretty nice because the rest home my aunt is at blocked off the area in front of the place and obviously there aren't too many kids seeing as it was some old people, some nurses and their kids, and us with Alli so she got plenty of candy and had tons of fun. A week or so ago (so a few weeks after the parade) she woke up talking about running in the street (awesome habit, I know!) to get candy and luckily the Salem parade was that weekend so she definitely got to do that. We did fireworks that night and seeing as Alli is still fully in the "princess" stage she loved the "princess" fireworks.
And in between the parade and fireworks and bbqs and flyfishing (Ryan went fishing while Alli and I went to the craft fair with my mom) Ryan fixed a leak in our sprinkler system so Alli loved playing in the water while he got the ground a little softened so he could dig. Don't mind our little naked, white trash girl. I am not sure how she ended up "nakey" but we quickly remedied the situation with her princess swimming suit and cover up.

And... I LOVE to Dance

So I know the title is super lame, but Girls Just Want to Have Fun is prob still one of my favorite movies, and I think that is one of my favorite lines. Alli has been in a little dance class the past few weeks and it is now over, but she had a great time. She loves doing her "plies" and will do them at the most random times (immediately before getting into her car seat, before brushing her teeth, etc. etc.) and she always says "pilay" or "pi-a" (or something similar, I wish I could mimic it because it's so cute) as she is doing it. She will also do her "princess turns" on her tip toes with her arms above her head. And randomly she will tell me "my dance class, I like it" or if we are going somewhere and go passed the dance studio she will tell me that's her dance class. She is super observant and informs me when we are going passed "daddy's work" "daddy's game-the gym he plays basketball at" or when we turn onto our street and go passed her "friend's house, Mar-our neighbor-'s house, and finally Alli's house." If I go passed that turn she will tell me she wants to go home. It really surprised me the first time she did it a while back, I had no clue she actually knew where we turned to go to our house. So here are some videos of her-the first one is pretty long, over 30 seconds!

Her favorite thing about her class were the "baby shakers" since she has maracas/shakers at home and these were mini ones.

The class was fun, we are having fun letting her try different things out so we'll see if she decides she wants to keep taking her dance class. Her class was for 2-3 so she and one or two other girls are by far the youngest (even though she's the same height as the girls a year older) so she's pretty young, but she loves going.