Worst Blogger Ever

I can not believe it has been almost a year since I have updated this blog.  Does anyone even read this thing anymore? :)  Anyway, life has been crazy for the past 10 months or so, but things are starting to slow down a little bit.  My mom and I started a little side business and I was selling things at the farmer's market.  So basically all my free time for the last while has been spent working and making stuff.  I have made so many hairbows and headbands and now that the market is over I have some spare time.  We did get our stuff into a store, but thankfully for now the turnover is much less than the market.  Dustin is out of town in Guatemala and has been for the past 10 days.  He gets home tomorrow night and us 3 girls are excited to see him.  The girls are in bed and I have nothing to do, so I have no excuse to not give a little update.

We had a really fun summer and the highlight was our trip to San Diego.  If I don't get lazy agian I might go back and post some pictures from it.  We went to Sea World, the zoo, the Safari Park, and some beaches.  We went with Dustin's parents and they let us use one  of their time share credits, so generous!!!  The trip was such a blast and we LOVED California.  I could move there in a second if it wasn't so expensive. 

Dustin has been super busy with work and I feel like I hardly see him.  He gets home in time for dinner and to get the girls in bed, and then he is usually working again until bedtime.  He is a really hard worker and I appreciate it so much. 

Ella is 3 1/2 and a total motor mouth.  She talks to me non stop all day. She wants reasons for everything and asks a million questions everyday.  I love our conversations and she is such good company.  She has made Dustin being gone so long not that bad.  Over the last 10 days I actually looked forward to the girls getting up in the morning over my alone time in the evenings.  She is a wonderful big sister to Grace and I love that they have so much fun together.  We are in a joy school group again this year and Ella really enjoys it.  That girl keeps me on my toes because she loves learning.  She is really into letters.  She writes all the upper case letters and some lower case.  She knows what every letter says and is starting to read some words.  Crazy!  She is taking ballet and really enjoys it.  Although she has so much energy that I have been wondering if I should have put her into some type of tumbling class.  I just can't believe my "baby" is so grown up.  This is a recent pictures of her.  Unfortunately she isn't smiling, but she was having a great time :) 

This is a picture from I think September, I had to find one with her smiling.

Grace is now 15 months old.  I took her in for her check up the other day and I believe she was 21 lbs. 5 oz. and 30.5 inches.  I think she was in the twentieth something percentile for weight and fiftieth percentile for height.  It is fun to look back at Ella's stats and compare.  So far they are always within on ounce our 2 and half an inch from each other at the same age.  Genetics are a funny thing.  Grace is such a happy girl and she is constantly smiling.  She is extremely busy and is on the go all day except for her one nap a day. She enjoys empyting out drawers as fast as she can and making huge messes in a matter of minutes.  She LOVES strawberries, black beans, and goldfish crackers.  She will eat practically anything I give her.  She love her daddy and get so excited when he gets home from work.  She isn't talking tons yet.  I know she is for sure saying, mama, dada, uh oh, hi, and I think she was saying woof today.  I know she says other words but I am not as confident that she always  knows what she is saying.  She is such a fun addition to our family and I can't imagine life without her.  I think this picture was taken in September.  I walked int o the kitchen and found this.  :)

This picture was taken around her first birthday.  When Dustin gets home with our camera I can put up some more recent ones now.  Her hair is mcuh longer and she looks so much more grown up.

Well, that was kind of long, but I am hoping to be better about updating now.  I would like to go back and document some of the summer so that will be my goal.  :)

Tons of Updates

Dustin is out of town and I got the girls to bed super early so I took the opportunity to do some major updating on our blog.  If you care, I did 6 posts tonight so just keep scrolling down if you want to read them.  Enjoy!!

Ella

I feel like I haven't given an update on Ella in a while, and she definitely deserves some attention.

Some things about Ella I don't want to forget:

-Ella is a girly girl.  She wants to be a princess and thinks that anyone wearing a dress is one (notice her Snow White costume).  If I would let her, she would put her lip gloss on 100 times a day.  She notices sparkles everywhere and asks to wear a skirt everyday.

-She always wants to make sure her outfit matches, along with her shoes and hair bows.

-She is a sassy girl with a serious attitude.

-She is very independent, "Just let me do it mine self!"  I hear that constantly throughout the day. 

-Ella loves to sing, dance, and twirl.  She always asks Dustin to be her prince and dance with her.  It is just as adorable as it sounds. :)

-She does not take naps and hasn't since she was barely 2.  But she will sleep 12 or 13 hours a night.

-She loves PB sandwiches, fruit snacks, cereal, waffles, pancakes, chocolate, quesadillas, guacamole, edamame, black beans, and much more that I can't think of right now.  Unlike other toddlers, she doesn't really like juice or ice cream. She is fairly adventurous and will try most foods.

-She loves to sing songs, especially the ABCs.  Every night before bed we sing I Am a Child of God and I Love to See the Temple.

-She is very determined.  At 2 she decided she would learn the alphabet and she learned her colors around 18 months.  Just yesterday she wrote her name for the first time. 

-She loves to brush her teeth and lately she wants a ponytail everyday.

-Ella has the cutest voice and has us laughing constantly with what she says.  The other day Dustin came home from work and changed his clothes:

                               Ella:  Daddy, did you change your shirt?

                               Dustin: Yes Ella, I did.

                               Ella: Oh, did you spit up on it?

She is getting used to me changing Grace's outfit like 10 times a day with all of her spit up. :) 

-Ella has high energy.  When she is bored she really starts to push my buttons.  I constantly need to give her something to do.  She loves to be my little helper.

-She is not potty trained yet.  She has successfully been there a few times, but then she decides that she doesn't want to do it anymore.  I refuse to make it a battle of wills and to ask her sit on the potty 100 times a day, so I am waiting until she decides it is time.  Right now she is wanting to be in a diaper because Grace is.  I am not concerned about it, but I will definitely be happy to not be changing diapers for 2 kids.

-Ella loves Curious George, Sesame Street, Super Why, and pretty much any Disney movie, especially the princess ones.

-As of late she really likes to get her picture taken.  She asked me to take the above picture of her with her baby.

-She calls Dustin and me by our first names a lot.

-She loves our extended family and constantly asks about all of them.

She says please, thank you, and excuse me like a champ.

I could go on, but I don't want to go too crazy.  I just need to be better about keeping track of all things Ella.

I love this little girl so much.  She keeps me on my toes constantly and melts my heart several times a day too. 

  

Gracie girl at 4 months

I am so behind on blogging and I mostly feel bad that I haven't been putting up pictures of Grace.  She has grown and changed so much.  I am currently compiling a bunch of pictures of her to post another time.  I can't believe she is 4 months old already and here is a current picture of her.

Grace is such a joy and a wonderful addition to our family.  She is a really happy baby and is constantly smiling.  In some ways she is like Ella, but she is her own little person too.  She just had her 4 month checkup and here are her stats:

14 lbs. 2 oz. (59%)

25 inches (75%)

I looked in Ella's baby book to compare their stats and they are almost identical, Grace is just a few ounces heavier. Here are some things about Grace that I don't want to forget:

-Grace smiled at 6 weeks and since then she will smile at practically anyone.

-She has a clogged tear duct in the same eye that Ella did. It is definitely not a fun thing.

-Around 6 weeks Grace decided she didn't need to take naps (hence my lack of blogging the last few months).  Fortunately she started sleeping through the night pretty early.  She currently still doesn't take many naps and will sometimes wake up once to eat.

-She is not a fan of bottles but we are working on it.  I feel really lucky that she nurses period since Ella wouldn't.

-Grace is a really easy going baby, I think she takes after her Dad.  Ella was a much more serious baby and she had a real intense stare.

-She looks a lot like Dustin.  People used to think that Ella looked like Dustin, but since Grace was born now everyone says Ella looks just like me.  Genetics are funny.

-She just barely started to suck her thumb.  Like her sister she has never been a binky fan.

-She drools constantly (notice her bib in the picture) and she spits up a ton too.  I usually have spit up somewhere on me.

-She hates tummy time and as such is not rolling over yet.  Tonight was the first time I got her to be on her stomach without her screaming and I think she is coming around.

-She has the chubbiest cheeks that I love to kiss.  We call her chub-a-lub :)

-She has had blue eyes since she was born, and I think they are going to stay that way.  Her hair is kind of brown with auburn right now, but I think it is too soon to tell what it will become.  Unlike Ella, she has kept a lot of her hair.

-She doesn't like to sit still.  If you are holding her she is happiest if you are walking around.

-Grace is a snuggler, she loves to be held and talked to constantly.

-She has super tiny feet, just like Ella did.

Becoming a mother of 2 has definitely been a challenge, especially since Grace started boycotting naps.  There are many days that Dustin walks in the door from work to find me still in my pajamas usually covered in spit up and totally frazzled.  Ella has really learned how to push my buttons and try my patience which has definitely been a challenge.  And this will probably sound so cliche, but as hard as being a mom can be, it is also the greatest joy and I wouldn't change it for anything.  I love spending my days with my 2 beautiful girls.  They teach me so much and make me want to be better in all parts of my life.  Sometimes Dustin and I just look at each other in disbelief that we have been married 6 years and have 2 children.  I feel so blessed to have such a great husband and to get to be a mom.  I am so close with my own mother, and I hope I can be like that with my girls too.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving this year in St. George with Dustin's family.  Dustin had to work on Wednesday, so we had to drive down on Thanksgiving.  His family was in the kitchen all day so when we showed up the meal was ready.  They did such an amazing job.  I took a bunch of pictures but somehow missed the actual food.  I think I must have been really excited to eat. :)  Going to St. George always feels like a mini vacation, and as usual we had a great time.

The beautiful table

 The kid's table

 The dessert table.  Brittney and Peter's pies were delish!

 Dustin and I were nervous about the drive down to St. George.  Fortunately Grace slept almost the whole way and we only had to stop once to feed her.  Her expression here represents how happy we all were to get there.  Five hours was a long time in the car for us. 

 Ella has been really into taking pictures lately.  I usually find a lot pictures of the couch and floor, but sometimes she actually gets people.  Here is a good one of Dustin...

 ...and one of Grandpa :)

 Dustin's parents and sister both of Golden Retrievers and Ella loves both of them a little too much.  She was always asking to feed them or brush them.

 Poker is always popular :)

 Ella LOVES her cousin Hannah and always wanted her to hold her.  Hannah is tiny too and I don't know how she can carry her.  She is so cute with Ella and I love that Ella has her to look up to.

 We went to a fun Christmas craft show and Grandma bought Ella a wand, Ella has been playing with it constantly since we got home.

 Ella always insists on walking in front.  This was on our way to the clubhouse to swim. 

Rob and Jana, thanks for such a wonderful time.  We wish we could have stayed longer.

Swim Lessons and Halloween

We signed Ella up for a parent tot swim class at the rec center.  It is definitely not her favorite thing, I am afraid she inherited my swiming skills. :)  I was still such a proud mom watching her.  Here she is with her class.

 Dustin's parents were in Park City over Halloween so we were able to spend lots of time with them.  I have hardly any Halloween pictures! Fortunately Ella has worn her costume almost everyday so I have many pictures with her in it :) I know Dustin's parents have a bunch and I need to get copies.  I forgot to bring Grace's costume on acutal Halloween, but she did get to wear it to her cousin's Halloween party.  She made one adorable pumpkin!  We were planning on trick or treating on Saturday night, but it was a total downpour outside.  The rain evenutally slowed down and we took Ella out for just a little bit.  The next day we did some great trick or treating in Park City with Dustin's family.

Grace with her Grandma Jana

 We surprised my mom and trick or treated at her house.  Ella is the little Snow White in the front.

 It was pretty cold and for some reason we left Grace's coat in the car so Dustin and his Dad kept Grace warm.



Wheeler Farm and School

At the beginning October we went to Wheeler Farm with my sister and her family. We fed ducks, did a corn maze, rode the wagon, and did pony rides. Ella and Riley are just 8 days apart and my sister is due soon with a little girl (Tessa).  She and Grace will only be about 5 months apart! 

Ella and Riley had a blast feeding the ducks and their Dads had fun keeping them from falling in the water :)

 Ella got impatient and evenutally just dumped her whole bag in.

 Ella was able to ride a pony and she absolutely LOVED it.  Looking back we wish we had paid to let her ride a second time.  She can be timid sometimes but she was totally excited this time.  As you can tell we were nervous at first so Dustin held on to her shirt.

 Grace was great the entire time.  I stayed with her while the rest of them went on the wagon ride.

 Wagon Ride

 We attempted to get Ella and Riley to sit on the step...

 ...so that we could recreate this picture from 2 years ago :)  It is fun to see how much they have grown up.

 We had Loran take a ton of family pictures for us.  Unfortunately most of them turned out like this.  They totally make me laugh and it truly captures the chaos that 2 kids can bring.

 We did end up with one good one.

 In other news, I am doing a little Joy School group with a few girls in my neighborhood.  Ella absolutely loves it!  In carrying on with the tradition from my mother, I had to take pictures of Ella on her first day of school. Her poses totally capture her personality.