Some Pictures

So my friend took these pictures for us about a month ago, but I just had to post some, because I'm so excited about how well they turned out. Thanks again, Brittany!

Home Alone... I wish I had pictures

No, I'm not talking about another sequel to the Christmas favorite. I'm talking about my two year old, last night.
Jessa fell asleep around 5:30 last night (yeah, I was up late!) and was still asleep when I left to go play Bunco with my friends. Robert was asleep in our bedroom because he works nights, so he sleeps during the day. Anyways, I went in our room and woke him up to tell him that I was leaving, but that Jessa was asleep, so he could probably rest some more until she woke up.
When I got home, Robert was acting kindof groggy, so I assumed that they had not been awake for very long. I asked Robert when Jessa had gotten up, and he told me sheepishly that he didn't know. I asked when he had gotten up, and he said around 8:30. So, for some unknown amount of time, we had a two year old wandering around our house alone. This is what Robert told me he found when he woke up:

Jessa was sitting on the floor in a pile of pillows and blankets, drinking purple grape juice right out of the 1/2 gallon can. There was grape juice all over her, all over the couch, all over the pillows, and all over my couch. So he took the grape juice and went into the kitchen to get her a sippy cup. On the floor of the kitchen he found a small cup full of soy sauce, along with a puddle of soy sauce, and a spoon covered with the same. Our dear little Jessa also had a soy sauce mustache. So, needless to say, I had some messes to clean up when I got home. But we also got a good laugh out of the situation. I'm just glad nothing bad happened to her. Next time I'll have to make sure either they are in the same room asleep, or that Robert is fully awake before I leave!

Happy Birthday to Jessa!

Saturday was Jessa's second birthday. I can't believe how the time flies. I am so grateful for this little spitfire that is such a ball of sunshine. She lights up my days, and it just warms my heart to see her smile. I can't believe how much she has learned and what a big little girl she is. She has developed such a personality and talks so well that sometimes it is hard to remember how little she really still is. So happy birthday, dear Jessa. We are grateful to have you in our lives!!!

We Still Live!

It's just that after I haven't posted for a month or so, I get this feeling of dread in my stomach every time I think about it. It's the same reason I haven't started my kids' scrapbooks yet-- I am so far behind I don't even know where to start. So I decided today that it was ok to just start with now and try to keep up from now on. So, I guess if you have questions about what's been going on the last four months, you'll just have to ask!

Suffice it to say our kids are growing like weeds, and just as cute as ever. Jessa is starting to say sentences and has lots of funny phrases like, "what can I do for ya?" and "what happened?" A month or so ago Robert found her a pair of pink glittery mary-jane shoes that she calles her "princess shoes" and she wears them constantly. She wore them to bed several nights, even. One night I took them off of her, much to her dismay, just before we got ready for bed. A little while later, she came back in the room and she had found them, in the dark, and put them back on. So then I decided to take them off of her in the middle of the night, because it can't be good to wear shoes for that long! So several hours after she was asleep, I pulled the first one off. She sat up, pulled it back on, grunted at me, stuffed her feet back under the covers and curled up with her feet underneath her. All the while, her eyes were still closed! It was a bit of a stuggle, but I got them off. After that we started taking them off and hiding them before she went to bed so she couldn't put them back on. Her other favorite things right now are hats. She wore a Burger King crown every day for at least a week until it fell apart. Yesterday I bought her a cute crocheted hat at a craft fair that I did, and she wore it all day yesterday. As soon as she woke up this morning, she had it back on, along with her princess shoes and newly acquired princess sunglasses. Usually the first thing out of her mouth in the morning is asking where some accessory is.
Will is growing up so fast! He is the most pleasant, happiest baby I have ever been around. He smiles at everyone, is starting to laugh fairly often, and never cries except just before he goes to sleep. He is happy to coo at the pattern on the sofa or to sit in his jumper and bounce up and down. I often find him awake in his bed in the morning, either just gazing around or cooing to the mobile over his head. He is such a joy and has the most kissable cheeks!!!
I just love being a mommy. There are so many little moments every day that make me so grateful for my cute little eternal family. I never get over the miracle of these two little amazing people in my lives, and most importantly my sweetheart and best friend. Robert is such a wonderful husband and daddy. It is one of my favorite things just to watch him interact with our children. Jessa adores him. She frequently tugs on his finger and whispers "come on, daddy" when she has some game she wants to play with him. He is so cute to play whatever she has come up with. He is currently working the night shift which has been difficult for all of us. But we are so grateful to have a job in this time when so many people are out of work.
The gospel is such a comfort in this time when it seems like nothing else in the world is stable and dependable. It is sad to see that most of the world believes that truth and right change with the times. Even our precious Constitution is being distorted and reinterpreted. It is a scary time, and yet "sweet is the peace the gospel brings" to my mind and heart.
Here's some pictures of my cute kiddos-- also, go to http://twirlphotography.blogspot.com to see some of the pics that my friend Brittany just took of them. Thanks Brittany!

CRAFT FAIR

May 1 & 2, 2009

Friday 12 p.m. - 6 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

@ the APX building 66 E. Main, Rexburg, ID


We will be giving away great prizes-- products from our booths!
We will have a drawing Each Hour.

For more info and to enter the drawing, visit here:
http://scrapsnpieces.blogspot.com

Five

5!

The first five people...to leave a comment on this blog post will receive something made by me. However there are some limitations:
1. I make no guarantee that you will like what I make :)
2. What I create will be just for you
3. It will be done within a year (might take a while)
4. You have no clue what it is going to be
5. I reserve the right to do something really fun

Here's the catch: if you choose to do this, you must post this on your blog and be ready to make something for five people too. This will be fun! When you receive the fabulous item I make you, you must post a picture of it on your blog.

I already have something fun in mind!

Pictures

We took our kids a couple of weeks ago to get their pictures taken. It was quite the adventure...
But overall they turned out pretty cute (even though Jessa never would take her jacket off!)
Here's a couple of the best shots.

Sometimes it's really hard to say no....

especially when it's your 19 month-old asking to watch "fu 'anda" again-- "pah-leeeeeeze?"
and when that doesn't work she asks for "move it, move it"so she can "DANCE!" (Kung Fu Panda has a special feature that has songs from several of the other Dream Works movies and "I like to move it, move it" from Madagascar is one of them). I get such a kick out of all the things she says. It never ceases to amaze me how many words she picks up on and understands. What a silly girl. And no, I didn't give in. I'm not up to watching Kung Fu Panda twice in one day (at least not today)!

Cutest family ever

Can I just say that I love being a wife and mom? There is nothing sweeter in the world than time with my cute family. It has been so fun to see Jessa as a big sister and I always enjoy Robert as a daddy. He has really enjoyed having a newborn again that will sleep on his chest. I think that's his favorite thing ever.

Look at this hairy little boy!!

We discovered really quickly that Will doesn't like to be swaddled because he has to sleep with his hands up by his face. It is so sweet. I just want to pull out the camera every time he sleeps. I just can't get over how perfect he is.

Jessa loves her little brother! Luckily for us, she is very soft with him and actually asks to hold him instead of trying to handle him on her own. She really likes to sit on the recliner with whichever of us is holding him. She usually comes to me with a book while I am feeding Will and we read. Sometimes we have a good laugh because I leave too much room between me and the arm of the chair and she falls into it and gets stuck.

She was giving him kisses, but we couldn't get the camera to snap at the right moment. What cuties!

On this morning, holding Will was the first thing she wanted to do when she woke up. She thinks he's pretty neat.

So I had this bright idea that we could paint with pudding, like finger paints. Right. It quickly turned into war paint. But it was fun. She had a great time, and it washed right off of everything. Great tactile experience, right?

My mom brought this cute shirt from Alaska. It is called a Kuspuk, and she got it at the native store in her village. All of the little eskimo girls wear them. In the winter time, they line them with fur. I thought it was so cute.


Jessa LOVES to "help", especially stirring. She has gotten really good at it, and even keeps most of it in the bowl now. She even manages to get all of the yolks broken when she stirs eggs. It is actually almost helpful!
Lately her favorite thing is to take ALL of her blankets and toys and pile them in one location. Generally she starts with something like what you see on the floor: she puts down her pillow, then her stuffed animals, and then she covers them with her blankets and tells me that they are sleeping. Then she proceeds to stack everything else on top of that. I frequently find shoes, ponytails, pens or crayons, and all sorts of other random things on the pile. I guess she wants the animals to stay down for their nap. I wonder where she got that? :0)
This tote is one of her favorite places to create her stack. The last couple of days she has also taken to laying on it herself. What a funny kid! I am so grateful for every moment I have with my three favorite people!

I'm in love all over again...

with this gorgeous, sweet little boy!

Welcome home baby boy!

We just arrived home with our beautiful boy, William Robert. He was born February 4 at 2:51 a.m. after a seven hour labor. Not bad at all! He weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and was 20 1/2" long. He has lots of dark hair and super long fingers and toes. Little Will is a great sleeper and eater already. We can't wait for Jessa to be home in a couple of hours to make our family complete! Here's some pictures of the little guy:

I do so love a great deal

ESPECIALLY when it's on something I actually NEED! I just got $173 worth of baby clothes and blankets for $51. No kidding. Anyone looking for baby clothes needs to go to K-Mart. They have a whole bunch for 60% off of the clearance price. Yay! Now I feel so much better about this little guy coming!

And just for kicks and giggles, get a load of this picture of my daughter today:

I don't know if I'm ready for this....

Ten days left? Are you kidding me? Where did the last nine months go? Don't get me wrong, I'm WAY excited for this new baby, and WAY ready to not be pregnant any more. But in ten days? I'm bringing home a new born with in the next two weeks. Why won't this set in? I feel so unprepared. Maybe it's because I don't know what to do with two, or because I'm a lot less familiar with baby boys than I was with baby girls when I had Jessa. Or maybe I didn't feel ready with her either and I just don't remember. I definately did feel a lot more prepared materialistically. When we were expecting Jessa we had her room ready, clothes washed and hung, bottles purchased,washed, and put away, and all that stuff-- at least a month before her due date. With this little guy I feel like we are lagging way behind. In all honesty, I don't currently own a single blue blanket. We have bought stuff to make a couple, but with moving and stuff, we haven't gotten them done. So I figure I need to get hold of at least one so he doesn't have to come home looking like a girl... :)
Any advice from more experienced moms on how to handle two and make sure that they both get the attention they need? I'm a little concerned how Jessa is going to handle the whole thing. Her world is already turned upside down because of our move and she has become super clingy and afraid of strangers. What can I do to make it easier for her and to help her actually like the baby?

On another note, I have to tell a story. I had Jessa with me in the store last night and she was sitting in the back of the basket with the things we were getting ready to purchase. As I turned around to grab something, she started counting what was in the basket. She did AMAZINGLY well too. She counted all the way to seven, and only left out six. She has been doing it all morning now too, and has even added nine and ten in a few times. It is amazing what kids pick up. I really don't count with her, other than when she brings me number books. Sometimes I worry that I'm going to run out of things to teach her by the time she's two because she'll already know what I know. It is truly a testament that these little spirits have been saved and prepared for the last days.

Bugs for dinner

Yes. My daughter just ate a boxelder bug. Luckily I got it off of her tongue and out of her mouth before she had a chance to chew it. Leave it to a toddler to follow suggestion. She was chasing it on the floor, trying to pick it up and I asked her what she was going to do when she caught it. Her daddy said, "she's going to eat it." And before I could say, "don't say something like that!", she had caught it and it was in her mouth! I have to say, though, that I haven't laughed that hard for a long time.

News

After living with Robert's parents for the past eight months, we are moving back to Rexburg. I was just offered a position as assistant manager for BYU-Idaho's married student housing. It will be a great spot for me and we are really excited to have our own place again. We have really enjoyed living here and are so grateful to Robert's parents, but so excited to have our own kitchen and more family time. We will be moving as soon as our apartment is open. Hopefully baby William won't come early!

We have had my brother Daniel here with us for the holidays, and it has been so fun. We will be taking him home tomorrow. I'm sure he is ready to go ;) but we will sure miss him. Jessa asks for him every morning when she wakes up. She is very fond of her fun Uncle.

We had a great Christmas. It was so fun to see Jessa enjoy opening packages and playing with her gifts. She was so excited! We have also enjoyed playing in the snow (we got approximately 15 inches this past week. ) Jessa has been very "helpful" helping Daddy shovel. She also loves to pull the sled and to take rides in the sled. She asks every day to go outside and "walk." She just walks around saying "bak, bak, bak."

Finally catching up

Well, I have lots of pictures to post, but I suppose the sad thing about waiting so long to post anything is that it's hard to make up a month's worth of stories and adventures. If I did, no one would ever finish reading the novel-long post. So I'll try to catch you up with just a breif bit about each picture.

MY big project the last couple of weeks has been quite an undertaking, but a lot of fun too. I have had all of my scrapbooking/ craft supplies in storage for the last several months, since we have very limited room where we are and it was taking over the living room.
Recently I had the idea to buy a stand-alone pantry that I could store all of my things in and have them hidden away and in a more compact space. So after I made a little money from my craft fairs, I bought this:
It is working great. I have all of my stuff organized in it and fairly easy to get to, and it is soooo nice to have it back. I did miss it, but it wasn't worth loosing the family space over. This is a great solution that gives us the best of both worlds. So this is what it looks like on the inside now that everything is put away:

Jessa is growing up so much every day! She is interacting more and more and understanding more what things do. We bought her a book a couple of months back that is the story of the three little pigs. It came with three finger puppets that are super cute. The other morning she brought them to me and held out her cute little index fingers. So I put them on her and she was delighted!

A new favorite and an old: we have discovered bubble baths recently, and she is never long without a toothbrush in her mouth. She frequently asks for both. I don't know why I never put bubbles in her bath before, I guess I just never thought about it. But it has gotten cold enough lately that it's not fun to go out and play with her bubble machine, which was one of her favorite things this summer. So after several days of her asking for "bubbles," I finally had the thought that we could play with them inside in the tub. It was an instant hit.

HALLOWEEN! Jessa was so cute for Halloween. We dressed her up as Tinker Bell, which she didn't really care for but we thought it was cute. I guess Halloween is pretty much a parent's game until they get a little older. It was a warm night, so we put her in the stroller and went to a couple of friend's houses (once again, SHE didn't care, so we didn't take her anywhere except where we knew people who wanted to see her dressed up). NONE of them were home! So we ended up with a nice long walk and one or two pieces of candy in the basket from people who happened to be outside and caught us as we walked by. It was perfect. Jessa's favorite is the suckers (as you can see). Two weeks later, and she still asks several times each day for "cany." Needless to say, it is well-hidden.

Halloween day, with pumpkin bows. This time she is sucking on a medicine dropper. She was right in the middle of being sick from getting new teeth, so we had been giving her Motrin. She REALLY liked it and always stole the dropper and wanted more.

So, a couple of weeks ago we almost got a dog. One of the girls that Robert works with had gotten a Brittney Spaniel/ Irish Setter cross for $100 that didn't get along with her other dog, and so she offered her to Robert for FREE. It just so happens that Robert has really been wanting a dog, specifically a Brittney Spaniel. But after a weekend, we decided we didn't have enough time or room for her. She was super cute and really well trained, especially for being only 9 weeks old. We really loved her, but it just didn't work out.

Anyways, while she was here, we had her cage in the bathroom that we put her in at night. Jessa quickly figured out how to open it up, and we had to catch Sadie more than once. One afternoon, I heard Jessa playing in the bathroom, so I went to get her out. When I did, I found this:

I thought it was so funny, I had to go get Robert to show him. On the way back to the bathroom, I heard her fussing. Apparently, she didn't want a cage-mate!

The weekend of my birthday we made pies for a pumpkin-carving activity we went to with some friends. I forgot the camera when we carved the pumpkins, but I got some cute shots of Jessa helping Daddy with the pie crust. She loves to help with everything, and usually does really well doing what she is asked.

Jessa also liked "helping" me make my block decorations. A couple of times she got the words rather mixed up! I couldn't get her to play with the un-decorated ones, she always wanted the completed ones that I was trying to put away. :)

Jessa loves her chair.

She is constantly pulling the lids off of my hair products. But I just thought this was a cute picture.One night Robert got home too late to eat with the rest of us, so we fixed him his own dinner. Jessa wanted to sit on the "bable" (she does that a lot lately, any ideas why?) Pretty soon she was helping herself to Daddy's supper. I have a really funny video of her trying to eat the spagetti noodles I'll have to try to post later.

We LOVE her curly hair!

Just a cute picture. I think she has such a cute grin!

Some of Jessa's new favorite words (and objects): "raidin" (raisin), "mobie" (movie), "pen" (pins), "pants," "poup" (soup. Yeah, it's really hard not to laugh when she asks for that one!), "bak" (milk. It took me a while to figure that one out), "cany" (candy), "nack" (snack), "bone" (phone), "me" (pick me up!), and hungry-- I don't have any idea how to type what she says for this one.

We are doing really well, getting closer all the time to welcoming baby Will. I start the third trimester today! We are looking forward to the holiday season and seeing family.