Time Reality

I have been trying to get myself to blog more now for almost 2 years. Lately I've started to realize that may never really happen again. I set up an instagram that I do little posts about what we are up to and I set up a regular instagram that gets made into chapbooks every 30 pictures because I just cannot find time to blog! I know I have the time. I know I don't use my time wisely. It's just really difficult for me to get on the computer when I know I could be working out, doing any number of chores, playing with the kids or relaxing (whats that?).

Not only that but many of my fellow bloggers have all but stopped their blogs as well. I told myself I would never do that, but the truth is I now realize that I might stop blogging. It has always bothered me that having a private blog is difficult for readers to log into. Instead if you want you can follow me on instagram. My main account is private my mini blog one is not, but I'm not going to type the name on here because I don't want just anyone to follow me if I can help it. Message me on Facebook, phone or email if you would like to follow me on instgram. It's been a crazy 8 isn years and I have loved bloggging and I might start again someday, but not anytime soon.

Bye-bye for now!

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and a Blankie

Moving twice in under two years is a pretty excellent way to help you want to live a possessionless life. About a year and a half ago I had a friend blog about diving into minimalism. I was busy unpacking our crap so of course I was intrigued. The only area I can really say I've ever struggled with wanting "stuff" all the time is clothes. When I was young I liked being cool, nowadays I'm on the mommy body changing roller coaster which makes keeping things that don't fit a battle of time. How long should I keep this? Will it still be popular when I fit it again? Did I really like it that much when it did fit? And last but not least is it worth lugging around for 2 years when I could easily replace it??

Along with that I got rid of allllll kinds of "things" and "stuff" I talked a little bit about it previously, but that was a rough year so I didn't have a lot of time or motivation to blog about it. Well recently I started reading Marie Kondo's book that's been so popular, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

 Not necessarily because I don't know how to tidy up, organize or purge, but in hopes of continuing to get more ideas and fine tuning my abilities. Also it's aways good, at least for me to keep my excitement up when it comes to cleaning. In the book, which I had already heard about, she talks about only keeping things that bring us joy. For the most part I found that advice kind of silly. In my mind my "things" either had value because of their daily/consistent use, I need them or they are sentimental (within reason). Then there's stuff like all my chubby mom clothes. They most certainly don't bring me joy but I refuse to buy new stuff just because I don't fit my regular stuff. That's not to say I don't have some clothes that I can wear but I don't want to have several full wardrobes for all my different weights $$$

Fast forward to about a week ago. I was Facebook surfing my friends' profiles when I found myself looking at a friend's super cute baby boy.

I looked closer and realized the blankie he was holding reminded me of one my brother used to have.

So I asked my friend where she got the blankie, assuming it had been hers or one of her siblings. It turned out that the blankie WAS actually my brother's/Davie's blankie and we had accidentally left it at her house on one of the many occasions she had watched my baby Davie (for free I might add). I wasn't upset or anything like that and she immediately offered to send it to me, which was super nice. I told her she should use the blankie for her little boy and then maybe send it back after he was done with it. The blankie is a little boyish and I just had Violet so I wasn't in any rush, but I did kind of want it back.

I've had a lot of time to think about that little blanket. What I left out, because I did not want her to feel bad, was that little blankie is what I brought Colin home in. 

I didn't buy anything when I had Colin. I basically had no money and I didn't want to have things that reminded me of him afterwards. So I took my brother's blanket to the hospital.

 I'm still not even sure how I ended up with it, I must have used it for my dolls and randomly kept it, which is surprising because my dolls were some of my first younger childhood toys to go.

After I placed Colin I actually carried the blanket around with me for a time. Not in a weird way, just around the house a little for the first week or so and I slept with it. For a while it actually still smelled like him and it was extra comforting.

After I had Davie I used the blankie again. Davie spit up a LOT. So it was tricky finding pictures with this blankie. We had a lot of laundry his first year. Note that he is naked in the picture below. He had drenched his clothes.

 It made me feel thrifty for reusing something and it was nice that it had been used by my brother and Colin (even though it was only a couple of days).

As I thought about these things I decided that the blanket did not bring me joy. Marie Kondo talks about that. As you go through your things you need to ask yourself if an item sparks joy in your heart. Even though I love my brother and Colin I realized that the blankie itself made me kind of sad and I also realized that I did not want it back.

 If anything it gave me 100% more joy knowing someone else that I love was using it. This is a long story about a silly blanket, but I was surprised to find myself (a fairly unattached and logical person when it comes to "things") getting so emotional over a blanket that I hadn't ever really used and was not something of any real value. My mom said she had bought it at a second hand store in Washington state before she had my brother Jordan. It wasn't homemade and it wasn't even a gift. Yet here I was trying to decide if I wanted it. I was glad I had the experience though, it helped me work through some of my feelings and emotions I didn't know I still had. It actually ended up being pretty cathartic. I realized that, as Marie Kondo says in her book, the blanket has served its purpose in my life and was now happy in its new home.

I don't know if I have gotten teary eyed about Colin in a long time but I did during this blankie dilemma. It's weird how we as humans can forget painful things so easily. My whole experience with Colin has given me empathy for others that I never would have gained in any other way. If it hadn't of been for Colin I would never understand some of the pain and sadness that goes into losing a child or infertility. While I realize that all three of those situations are different the loss felt is very similar and I'm glad I can understand others just a little better.

Once again I can say that I know God loves me and that he watches over me. From time to time we may all think that we have learned all we can from certain trials or that we no longer have healing to do. It's amazing how our Heavenly Father can present himself in our lives and help us when we are not even aware that we need it. 

Violet's 2nd Month

Violet has completely woken up this last month. She smiled a couple of times during the last 2 weeks before her 2nd month birthday but not a lot and it was always kind of sneaky. The very last 2-3 days before she turned 2 months her smile became completely social and I could consistently get her to smile at me. This month had a lot of REALITY in it. No family, no trips and a lot of naps at the house. Her older sibs were going crazy, but this mom had to adjust. It is sooooo hard to deal with my other kiddos *cough, Macy, cough* when I have such a tiny sweet baby around!!

She sleeps at least 6 hours a night if not more, she is such an angel baby! 

Davie is obsessed with her. He's not UN-gentle but he isn't careful enough and tends to jostle her more that I like. 

When she gets chunkier it won't be so bad

Sometimes (ALL the time) I feel bad for her because ALL of us are all SO incredibly loud all the time. Between her brother and sister and me talking to her brother and sister there's not a lot of peace and quiet. Thankfully Violet doesn't seem to mind.

Squish, she tends to just kind of hang out where she is put and usually falls asleep anywhere during the day.

I look tired in this picture, but I promise life has been pretty darn great!

Violet is so easy going thus far that I have to remind myself that she has a personality but that personality is just different than her siblings. With Macy I didn't realize her demanding "food now!" attitude was a reflection of what life is going to be like as she got older. 

Wait... I changed my mind, I don't want to hold her anymore.

Davie was less demanding but it still was fairly easy for him to start crying when he was a baby. Violet takes a lot longer to get herself into a tizzy. I tease with David that she tends to baulk and grunt more than cry when she is unhappy or hungry. I can't say for sure just yet, my answer will come once Violet gets mobile. The age of mobility is when Davie and Macy made it crystal clear they were going not going to miss anything... EVER.

Our Hot pink burrito 

Violet is my second baby to refuse to take a binky (I was so sad about that). I don't know what it is about those sweet little binky faces, but I was so hoping she would take one! She is also my least dependent on swaddling. Davie was the most for almost 18 months, then Macy for about 9-12 months and Violet already sleeps un-swaddled.... for the whole night! I still swaddle her, but if she gets out I don't worry. She is still great at diaper changes. Seriously, this baby loves a fresh diaper! Which is incredibly foreign to me since both her siblings HATED that.

The first of MANY matching outfits.

We potty trained Macy this month so now Violet is the only bum I'm changing! Hurray! Turns out newborn/ little baby diapers aren't that bad. 

Snuggles

This was shortly after I moved her straps on her carseat up. Look at that hair! Everyone comments on it. Especially out in public and even more so when/if they see Davie and Macy's blonde little heads of hair. It's funny because she looks a lot like Davie did, only he lost his hair around 3/4 months. I think Violet has managed to keep hers thicker and darker for about a month longer already.

The only exception to her sweet easy going self seems to be in the evenings when she struggles with bubbles in her tummy. I'm not sure what it is about my girls but they both have struggled with that. I think Violet is possibly affected by my caffeine intake, which is not a lot to start with, so I've tried my best to just not drink any. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not dairy bugs her. If it is dairy I really think it's just ice cream. But based on all I have read and David's thoughts on the subject it's incredibly hard to prove that, so who knows.

She's pretty patient with me, but she does tend to be more fussy with David. He teases on a daily basis that Violet doesn't like him. Which is kind of true. 

Violet finally got too big for her newborn clothes this month and has been wearing mostly size 1 diapers. But she wore both about 2-3 weeks longer than Davie or Macy. Like I've said before she's just our delicate little flower. 

The End

Macy, Macy

I was looking on my blog this last week and in the topics section I noticed that Davie's name is about twice the size of Macy's. At first, this made me feel bad because I know I have blogged so little since Macy was born and we finished school. After I thought about it for a while I realized that Davie has been around for two more years than Macy so it's probably not nearly as bad as I think. All the same I am more than willing to admit that I haven't documented her as well, at least on this blog. 

After this last week I feel it necessary to have a blog post about Little Miss Macy. Have I said she's a sass yet? Yeah she's a sass. This last week, Tuesday especially, Macy was literally trying to BREAK me. I can think of no better way to say it. Of course Tuesday was our anniversary so maybe she was just trying to wish us a happy anniversary in her own awful little way.

Macy has for quite some time been the most excellent little trouble maker around. From day one she had great motor skills, yes as a newborn. I literally just do not know how to describe her. I often find myself trying to decide why she is so difficult, but she truly knows how to get into everything, at any and every second, every turn all the time.

For example last September, she climbed out of her crib.... she was barely 18 months. All these toddler abilities for the most part are simply annoying and makes my daily little chores, like basic cleaning, difficult, but there are other times where it is a disaster.

She was running at Lowe's and wasn't looking forward, then she turned around and smacked into the edge of a long piece of gutter (like for the roof). This, injuries at Lowe's, has happened several times. Mostly falling because she was running too fast, but there have been several inattentive runs that have ended in her smashing her head/face into something. Ouch!

 Like drinks, she always seems to know where liquids are, she always seems to be thirsty AND about 90% of the time she spills said liquid everywhere. Sometimes on purpose. Regardless of whether everyone in the whole house is yelling "No Macy! Wait let us help you, you will spill!!" Just this morning in the time it took for me to pick Violet up (because she was crying) Macy had spill 80% of the contents of her cereal bowl. That was most likely on purpose.

It's frustrating because she's so adorable and I love her so much. All you moms know exactly I'm talking about SOOO much it almost hurts. Then she turns around and blatantly ignores everything I say. Repeatedly. I've definitely struggled with trying not to yell. I wish I could say I have it under control but between Davie and Macy someone's always in trouble. And no one listens when I talk in a normal voice. Mom life all the way.

Macy is probably the quintessential second child. A couple of weeks ago I remember looking outside while Davie and Macy were playing. Davie was messing with some sort of bug on the sidewalk and Macy came up behind him with a sand shovel in her hand. 

She tapped Davey on the head with the shovel and he didn't react then she did it again and again and again harder each time until Davie finally started crying. I really try my best to not get in the middle of every fight because I don't feel like that's realistic but also because there are so many of them at this age. I do genuinely feel bad for Davie because Macy is so rough and he really is a very good brother most of the time.

 He definitely instigates plenty, but Macy has bugging him down to an art. I can't remember which one of my parents said this but it's totally true Macy is a tormentor. I love her to death and she can be sweet as candy but she definitely struggles. What can I say?? Macy IS two.

Macy has been slow to talk not because she doesn't have the skills. She just straight up doesn't want to and for the longest time she had a very small vocabulary and most of it was commands like, go, stop, no, mine, shush, etc. A couple months ago she started adding animal noises as the animal names so instead of cat she would say meow instead of cow it's was moo. I think my favorite of all these sound titles is her little mermaid doll she sleeps with and all the little Ariel figurines she has. We've tried in vain to tell her it's Ariel or the little mermaid but she insist on calling it her ah-ahhh-ah (just like the little song Ariel sings when she gives her Voice away).

Macy and Ah-ah-ah

 Just a hot mess

Another thing she's been big on is frozen, not because we have encouraged it, she just decided she liked it one day. Macy always called Anna and Elsa- Anna. We couldn't get her to say Elsa, we knew she could but she would not until this last week she finally decided to say it! A couple of months ago I had bought her a pair of pajamas that had Elsa on it in hopes of bribing her into saying Elsa's name. Total no go. Then this last week I made a pudding cake and I got her to say Elsa without even fighting. It's funny because I had heard her kind of say it before I knew she could say "El" and I knew she could say "sah" but I could not get her to saw them together. It sounds a little more like El-tha but I'm just glad she is trying. She has since lived the last 4 days her new Elsa pajamas.

I definitely think the last week or so she's gained more confidence in her speech. David is the one who mentioned it first, and I agree, but I definitely think Macy gets self-conscious about not being able to say things correctly and then she won't try.

Now that we have a baby in the house she's always caring for her babies carting dolls or stuffed animals around, putting them down for nap and singing to them. I was a little worried she might be jealous just because she was more of a mommy's girl to start with but she's done really great since Violet arrived. I've been very impressed with both of my kids both times. They are great helpers.

She was always been our eater but has since traded that in for being a persnickety little two-year-old. Food staples like bananas, apples, strawberries, bread rice, chicken, tacos (you name it) are suddenly something she will no longer eat. Or she eats like a bird.

Macy loves books and hasn't really ruined any. She's gotten a lot better at snuggling, loves candy of all kinds, still working on potty training (not quite ready yet), has a funny OCD type way of cleaning occasionally (mainly wiping herself or other objects down with baby wipes).

She gets in these silly moods that put us all in stitches, usually its because she makes the funniest faces. She might be a stinker but she is ours and we love her to pieces!

Violet is 1 month!

It's cliche and I say it every time, but it seriously goes by so fast! What is even more of a let down is that in my opinion it goes by faster every time. I am OBSESSED with my newborns. I just love them to death. I've had some great new babies though and have never been too sleep deprived.

What can I say about Violet's first month? It was mainly full of visitors. They came about a day after I returned from the hospital and they left 3 days before Violet turned a month. That makes having a newborn easier too :) I love our families for it!!

So far with all of my babies I have been lucky enough to have family at our house for almost 30 days afterwards. This time was no different. My family came for about two weeks then David's family came for about two more weeks. By the time everyone left Violet was only a couple of days away from being a month old.

What can I say about Violet? She was my smallest baby and even though she had a good suckle when I would try to feed her she wasn't a good eater. I think it was because of her slightly early arrival (four days) and being so small. It took her forever to want to latch (she loved to bob around a lot) and then by the time she did she would basically fall asleep within a minute. It was kind of like oh you're warm and soft and smell good.... Zzzzz. And while she was utterly adorable, teeny tiny and like all new mom's I loved that sleep, she definitely made me nervous!

pretty sleeping baby

Violet really only ate once at the hospital. Davie wasn't a whole lot bigger but he was much better at letting me know when he needed to be fed (pretty much every 3-4 hours). With Violet I had to set an alarm, un-swaddle her, undress her, changer her and she still wouldn't necessarily be awake. I remember one night in particular it took me a good 45 minutes to get her to wake up and the it took her over an hour to eat because she kept falling asleep. That was probably the toughest part. She started at 6lbs and lost a whole pound before she started gaining! That definitely made this mama super nervous!! I was (and still am) much more diligent about making sure she doesn't go very long between feedings.

The plus side was that she was so tiny and snuggly and just beautiful. The more babies I have the more I fall in love with them. I LOVE newborns. Like Love, love looooveeee!!! I've been very blessed and I'm thankful for how sweet and easy going all three of mine were their first couple of months. I do a lot of nursing, sitting and cuddling while watching tv after my babies. It's the best. Also on a completely unrelated topic any Netflix or Hulu suggestions would be great right now ;)

At her one month appointment she was 7'11. To put that in perspective that's what I weighed at birth! Haha I was quite a bit bigger. As of her 1st month birthday she was still in newborn clothes and diapers. I'm thankful that Violet was my 3rd time around in the nursing department because I already knew what I was doing and she did not. It was completely different than Macy, who was practically a pro from day one. Had she been my first I probably would've struggled a lot more and maybe even given her formula or a bottle.

 Violet was born on a Wednesday we came home on Saturday and by Sunday she was literally giving me anxiety. She had several wet diaper but just the tiniest bit wet and no bowel movements since the hospital. Sunday (after she was blessed) night before bed David changed her and she let it all out!

He had to message her tummy a little and push her knees up and down to help her out. It was still meconium so I think between her not totally catching on to eating yet and it being thick it was more energy than she had in her tiny 5 pound self to get it out. However after that it was a complete 180 in her diapers and eating habits and I was finally able to relax! I aways wanted to have little babies, but when they struggle with eating AND they are little it makes a mommy anxious REALLY fast! If she hadn't started eating better that night I had planned on giving her a bottle. It was a tense situation for sure with a happy ending.

Violet likes to be held. Sometimes she will fuss and stop immediately after you pick her up. She doesn't really take a binky. She is still a champion sleeper and gives me a solid 4-5 hour stretch almost every night. Violet also likes to be fresh. I've never had baby that liked getting their diaper changed, but she does. If she starts to cry and I pick her up to change her she stops. Even if she is hungry she will patiently wait for me to change her. While I'm changing her I can tell she's like "ah, that feels better". There were many times that first month after I brought her home that I would lean over to pick her up and she would look right at me. She wouldn't smile, but she would give me this happy knowing look. It was so loving and adorable.

That is a pretty small baby doll Violet is sitting next to.
It was her way of telling me she was happy to see me. Made my heart melt. None of my newborns have ever acknowledged me like that before so it was pretty special. The first night we brought her home Davie wanted to hold her and she started fussing so I took her back and she immediately stopped crying. Made this mom feel pretty good. Violet is such a sweet little baby.