why i love being a mom

While Isaiah was at preschool, Elias and I ran errands. At the end of the errands, I told Elias if he could be good, I'd buy him some lemon bread at Starbucks. He was good, so he got bread. After about three bites, he wrapped it up and said, "I want to share dis wid Isaiah when he gits done wid schoo". (Man, I love how he talks).

Fast forward, after Isaiah and Elias's nap, Isaiah asked if he could eat his lemon bread. He opened up the bag then ran over to Elias and gave him the biggest hug. He said, "Buddy! Thanks for saving me some lemon bread! You're the best dude. Thank you!"

Oh my goodness. It was the cutest thing, and it made my heart beam at the possibility that my boys do actually like each other!

And that moment of the day, made it all the more exciting to be their mommy. They are difficult, they do fight, but they sure love so well!

On the other side of it, we were driving to meet to play with friends. Isaiah pipes up in the back of the old van and said, "When I get big, I'm going to have a big bottom cuz you and daddy have big bottoms. I've seen your pants!"

Wow. I could not stop laughing and texted Bryan the quote of the day right away. Those boys. I love them.

10 months

Miss Rae at 10 months

Weighing in at 19.5 pounds

~ You roll all over the house, and have started reaching up and sticking your fingers in the electrical outlets. I am in baby proofing mode. You also love to get tangled in cords. You love cords.
~ One of your favorite places in the house is the boys' bedroom. You hardly get to go up there because of all the small toys you could choke on, but when we do take you up there, it's a little piece of heaven for you.
~ Your top front two teeth came in! You are starting to look so much older as they come in.
~ You have mastered the art of getting from the sitting position onto your stomach. At the beginning of the month, you'd get one leg stuck under you, but now you can do it all by your self.
~ You still love to stand and bang on things - near the couch and chairs are you favorite places to stand.
~ You have started trying to walk while we hold your hands. Just barely getting it down, but it's so cute to watch you try!
~ You love to get up on all fours in the crawling position and rock. You are so proud of yourself every time you do this.
~ You love music. You bop to music of any kind - commercials, toys, my ipod, Isaiah and Elias singing - anything. It is so cute!

I couldn't capture a smile for her 10 month photo shoot. She was being a little rascal, but maybe it had something to do with wanting to be in bed and not getting her picture taken...maybe.

a 60's kind of weekend

Bryan's family came into town to celebrate Pops's 60th birthday. We had Uncle Jerad and Auntie Jami, Uncle Lanson and Auntie Wendy, and Grami and Pops all crammed under our roof with us. The kids were in heaven with so many people to play with them and read to them. Raelynn is officially going through with drawls since 6 extra people aren't holding her or laughing at her every second of her being awake.

We ate, shopped, swam, played basketball, read books, played games, played the Kinect, went to an NNU basketball game, and ate some more. It was a really fun weekend celebrating how special Pops is.

 I think this might have been the highlight of the night - Elias and Isaiah made cards for Pops. Elias decided to glue his shut, so he was helping Pops figure out how to open it. His explanation was hilarious and it took him some work to get it open. Pretty cute.

my little fishies

My boys started swim lessons. They are so cute in their matching swim trunks and blonde hair. They listen to their sweet teacher so well, and they might be a little spastic in their swimming efforts (they have me to blame for that - I'm a terrible swimmer). I love watching them. It's only for 30 minutes twice a week, but they look like they are getting even more confident in the water. With the progress they are making, they are going to be teaching me to swim soon!

oh elias

He's the funniest little boy. He cracks us up on a regular basis. What I mean by regular, is he makes me gut laugh almost every hour he is awake. Gut laugh? Yeah, I said it, gut laugh. I can't hold it in, I just laugh from my belly up and usually goes along with teary eyes from laughing so hard and it's some of the best parts of my day.

His favorite line of late? "He is being wude and respictible (rude and disrespectful). Elias says this whenever someone doesn't do what he likes, whether it's being told, "no", or Isaiah taking something from him or whatever. He ran into the bathroom yesterday while I was getting ready. He was crying, and said, "Daddy is bein wude and disrispictible and won't let me eat any cwackers". He talks so cute still, and yesterday I laughed out loud at this. I couldn't help it. That made the "wude and disrispictible" problem worse, but I just could not contain my laughter.

The other night at dinner we were eating chicken. My boys still aren't big meat fans. Anyway, I told Elias to finish his chicken and he turned and looked and me with a huge frown and tried to say, "I am eating". He had the largest amount of chicken in his mouth. It was beyond chipmunk cheeks. It was practically falling out of his mouth (I know, totally gross), but it caught me so off guard that I just busted up laughing. Like tears in my eyes laughing.

Elias and Isaiah are obsessed with their birthdays coming up in April. They already picked a pirate theme. Elias asks me almost every other day, "Where are we gonna hang the yato?". The first time he asked, I was so confused. What in the world is a yato? So he described it to me. "You know the ting dat you hit wit a bad?"....Then he started doing the motions of swinging a bat...Oh yes, the pinata that we hit with a bat. So, if Elias ever starts talking about a yato...it's a pinata.

a little snow

We woke up to snow coming down, and the boys were so excited when there was actually enough to go outside and play a little bit.

 Then of course we came inside and had hot chocolate to warm us up! 

Isaiah started slowing down and getting a little whiney, so I told him to lay down on the couch. This is how I found him a couple minutes later.

I guess the little man was sick AGAIN. Poor kid.

The snow didn't even last until after nap time, but it was fun while it lasted!

34

The hubs turned 34 this week, and we got to celebrate with just the two of us! It was a fabulous day. We started our day off putting an offer on some land we found. It's a beautiful 2.5 acres, and just perfect to build on someday. Then we headed to a movie, which was awful, but it was nice to sit in a quiet theater with no crying or whining! We ended Bryan's birthday at The Melting Pot. Oh so yummy.

I love my husband. He is just perfect for me, and we have so much fun together. Isaiah is really enjoying taking pictures with Bryan's phone lately. Here is the one he captured before we headed out on our date!

my favorites as of late

~ When I put Raelynn down for a nap or bedtime, I stand and sway with her for a few minutes in her room. She lays her head on my shoulder and hums. It's the sweetest thing, and it is one of my favorite parts of the day.
~ Isaiah and Elias help set the table every night. They love to help out (most of the time).
~ The kids are napping at the same time again. Thank you, Jesus!
~ I love to have an afternoon coffee with a salted chocolate carmel from Costco and watch a Gilmore Girl rerun. It's a fabulous 30 minutes break in the middle of the day for me.
~ My James Bible study by Beth Moore. I have always loved the book of James, but I love to study it with a bunch of lovely ladies.
~ SUNSHINE. I cannot get enough of this sunshine shining in my windows. It is such a motivator for me.
~ Looking at houses. I'm addicted. It's so fun to look at old dumps and dream of how Bryan and I could make it a wonderful place to live. We are also addicted to making house plans. Bryan is really good at that, and I just throw my two cents in when he shows me what he's come up with. It's a big dream right now, but it's fun.
~ Being a stay at home mom. I love it. I never thought I'd be able to stay at home with my kids full time and stay sane, but now that I'm feeling better, I'm starting to cherish all this time I have with my kids. It's getting easier for me to let things go (not have a perfectly picked up house), and sit down and play with the kids. I love it more and more everyday.

holy 50

My mom had your half century birthday yesterday. She's going to love that I called it her half century birthday! We had a lovely lunch of fajitas courtesy of Josh, the master griller of the family. Then had some yummy chocolate cheesecake made my me. I like combined effort celebrations.

We had it at our house complete with over the hill napkins and black decorations. I added purple in there and some fun colored balloons too because why does it need to be morbid?

I do believe that Mom enjoyed herself.

But seriously. 

Does this woman really look like she's 50?

 I think not, and I better have those young looking genes!

And of course, some pictures of the youngest party girl

Happy birthday, Mom! You are loved so much!

6 years

Happy Anniversary to us! We've been married 6 years, and it's flown by. I can't even believe I've known Bryan for 6 years, let alone, been married to him that long!

We celebrated our anniversary a few weeks ago because we knew February would be a crazy month. I really, really wanted to go to Hawaii for our 5 year anniversary, but I was largely pregnant and that seemed awful. This year it didn't happen either because we have way too much on our stress plate right now.

So....we celebrated by getting a Hawaiian room at the Anniversary Inn. We started the night off with appetizers, went to a movie, then off to our hotel to have a quiet night with cheesecake and no children. Bryan ended up having to work in the morning for a few hours, but when he got off, we had lunch. We spent the rest of afternoon drinking coffee and driving around looking at houses.

I guess that's how an old married couple spends their time alone? It was wonderful and relaxing. I was not feeling great at the time, so it was such a great time of quiet and one on one time with my hubs.

This is the wonderful gift Bry gave me. 

The front of my pretty bracelet

The back of my pretty bracelet

2X3=6

That's our anniversary. 02-03-06.

I picked multiple dates to get married. We had a lot of schedules to work around. All the dates I wanted to get married on were even numbers (remember, I'm a math nerd). But, NONE of the dates I picked would work, so I had to settle on getting married on the 3rd, an odd number. I was so bummed until I realized the math significance of our anniversary. 2X3=6.

There is even more math significance that I told Bryan all about in great detail while we were engaged, but there is no need to bore with how my mind works. I'm surprised Bryan didn't go running for the hills when I told him all about our amazing math anniversary. He is a special man. A very special man.

january

The month seemed to drag and fly by all at once. I was so sick for so much of the month, and I didn't keep up as well as I wanted. I did pull out the camera a few times, so here is a glimpse.

I made brownies. Obviously Elias is so grateful to lick the beaters

 The boys love to push each other around in these boxes

Now they love to push Raelynn

Raelynn was loving it

Such buds

Watching Tom & Jerry

Such cute cousins

It snowed like crazy one day

I had the flu and could barely move

Bryan was a good daddy and took them out to play

an improvement

Today was a good day. Poor Isaiah is sick, but that meant a lot of cuddles, a lot of movies, and a lot of sewing for me. I decided Rae needed a teething necklace. I went to buy some wooden beads for the necklace a few weeks ago, but found some other ones on clearance....totally didn't think about the fact of how uncoordinated she is. Gigantic glass beads WILL NOT work for a teething necklace. Oops. It would be like throwing marbles at her head. Bad idea. She didn't get a teething necklace.

So, I decided to make her a little taggie ball toy to play with instead. Then I decided to finish some bibs that I had cut out way back in November. It was a productive day in the sewing world, but not so much in the cleaning world. Oh well is what I say to that today.

This is how my dining room looks now

And this is what my boys did all day

Poor Isaiah is just miserable

I am slowly getting more energy. I have felt pretty good since Monday, and increasingly better each day. I've experienced my sickness enough times to know, that I'm not completely out of the sea of sickness. There will be good days and there will be bad days. The happy part is that this is the longest I've gone between bad days in about 3 weeks. Thank you, Lord, for that!