On Sunday we had beautiful weather and had an impromptu cook out/play day outside. We got out our corn hole game, had all of Hannah's outdoor toys out, and got the grill cleaned up and ready for summer. We grilled pork chops and corn on the cob. Usually I just cut the corn off the cob for Hannah but she wanted to be like mommy and daddy.
She has been cracking us up lately! Yesterday we were going to go outside to play and I told her to go get her shoes. She leaves the room and comes back with one of Jesse's giant cleats. She can barely walk with it cause its so big. What was she thinking!? I laughed and then she laughed.
Last night Jesse, Hannah and I were all laying on the floor playing with the blocks and she gave Jesse a big ol' kiss on the lips. So he asked for another kiss and this time it was big ol' open mouth. She couldn't stop. I don't know if she thought it was funny or our reaction was funny. But she gave him about 20 big, sloppy kisses. He kept trying to turn his head so they would be on his cheek but she would only be happy with his mouth. It was hilarious and disgusting and sweet all at the same time. Keep in mind she is teething so she is drooling a lot-the extra drool added to the humor. Then Jesse told her to give me a kiss and she went through the whole process again with me. I tried to get the drool-y kisses on my cheek too but she only wanted to do lips. I've never loved a sloppy kiss so much. She is such a lovey these days, giving hugs all the time.
I don't have anything special to write today. Just an update for our family and friends that want to know.
She is in such a fun phase, every day I think at least once (if not more) "I don't want to forget this. I should write it down." So here I am writing it down.
-She loves her Little People Airplane and will cycle through all the sounds till she gets to the song, then she picks up the plane and makes it fly while she dances to the song. Its adorable!
-She has yet to say the word "no" but she loves to say "yes", though it sounds like "jes" with a head nod. And she is good at answering questions. (i.e. "Do you want your milk?" "Jes"; "Do you want to play with your puzzles?" "Jes"; "Do you want to take a nap?" "Jes") Its so fun to communicate with her!
-She is now proficient at climbing and going down the slide by herself. She just climbs the 3 steps, puts her feet over, sits down and pushes off. WEEEEEE! Thats the sound we make as she goes down.
-Being outside in her sand box is her new favorite activity. She loves it! Guess its a good thing the house came with it. This toy was a garage sale bargain for $10!
-She loves being chased. I'll say "I'm gonna get you" and she takes off 'running' and laughing. Then she explodes in giggles when you catch her and tickle her.
-She loves being chased. Especially when she has a poopy diaper and I tell her she needs a clean diaper, she takes off running and laughing.
-Jesse makes this silly face at her, kind of a cross between a smile and a growl. She will do it back to him-nose scrunched up, teeth bared, chin stuck out. Its so funny!
-She loves anything elmo! We got these slippers at a garage sale-still had the tags on them- for $.50!! She also found a toy in Babies R Us that had elmo and I had to bargain to get her to walk away.
-She basically puts herself to bed these days. I tell her its time for a nap and she walks to the baby gate and waits till I open it, climbs the stairs, goes to her crib and waits. I pick her up and put her in and she grabs her bunny, rolls over and goes to sleep.
Every day or so Jesse and I talk about how much we love this phase! She laughs and giggles and can somewhat communicate. She is just a lot of fun and she sleeps great so we have the best of all worlds. Thanks for humoring me during my update. It was probably boring for a lot of you!
4 blogs in 2 days! Thats gotta be some kind of record-it is for me at least.
Hannah is having a rough week.
-While we were in Palm Springs she got her first skinned knee. She has started trying to "run" and she was wearing shorts for one of the first times this year and she fell on the asphalt. Poor girl didn't know what had happened! Now she has a healing bloody knee.
-Yesterday we were playing outside. She has a little Tinker Bell folding chair that she likes to sit in. Well she was leaning on the back of it and it folded up and her fingers were inside the metal with all her weight leaning on it. She was stuck. I leaped to her aid but not before getting a swollen pinky.
-Then she was playing around our front elevated bed around our tree and she tripped and face planted into the mulch. She had sticks of wood and dirt all over her face. Within 30 minutes the damage was obvious. Lots of little bruises and scratches all over her forehead. We went out last night (because Del Taco had $.29 tacos and $.49 burritos for Cinco de Mayo) I was afraid the other customers would think she had chicken pox!
-Last night around 11pm she woke up screaming and I went into check on her-she was burning up! Her temp was 102.4! She's also developed a really gross cough so we are headed to the doctor today. I have maddy today too because her mom had no one else to watch her. I made no promises that she wouldn't get sick.
Look closely. See the scratches? If you click on the pic it'll get bigger and you can see them.
I feel like I get used to being a mom and doing good with Hannah's routine. And then, out of no where, Hannah changes! Currently she is in a very fussy stage and a very "mommy-stage". I do feel very loved and needed but simultaneously I feel overwhelmed and frustrated. I can't hold another baby or even a dog without Hannah getting upset. I can't leave the room without tears. I can't give her to Jesse in the evenings without a total melt down. I went to the movies with a friend last night and I had a hard time relaxing knowing Hannah was freaking out and Jesse would have a rough evening. But, I know its a stage. All of her stages have come and gone and this will too.
For Mother's day I'm getting a one hour massage! I'm very excited. I have that this saturday. We aren't sure yet if we will be going out to lunch or anything because Jesse has a softball game at 1pm that day and we will have church that morning. But I will enjoy my massage as my gift! Maybe we can do lunch or something on Saturday afterwards.
I love the tv show "The Middle" its on Wednesday nights on ABC. Its one of the few sitcoms that I record weekly. I feel like I have a lot in common with the mom on the show. Last week, she watched the royal wedding and was very excited about it. This week she had some good conversations about mother's day. Here is an excerpt from the show. This is a conversation between her and her husband about mothers day-
The mom, Frankie: " As a mom, when you're with your kids you want to be alone and when you're alone you want to be with them. And no matter where you are, you feel guilty you're not in the other place. You know?"
The dad, Mike: " No, I don't feel guilt that way."
Frankie:"Geez! Father's shouldn't even get a day....No guilt? That must be nice!"
Mike: "It is."
I love it! Isn't parenting so different for moms and dads? We both love and provide for our children but in such different ways. Jesse and I have been living this a lot lately with Hannah's current "mommy-stage".
In honor of my second Mother's Day, I bring you a few recap pics:
As some of you know from my previous blog Unexpected Changes, we had to cancel a trip to visit my mom because she got sick. But we were able to make up for it this weekend. It was in the 90s every day we were there and we lived outside! We ate most meals outside, took walks, went to the pool, ate outside at restaurants. It was a wonderful visit. Hannah got to meet her Grandma PJ for the first time! I can't believe they hadn't previously met. Her are the pics...
So tired from all the fun! She loves cuddling with her bunnies.
She loved the fountains!
Notice the line of watermelon juice running down her chin. She also ate her first hotdog and loved it! (torn up into little bitty pieces of course!)
Don't you love her flower petal hood?!
She looks happy but she was really trying to pull her glasses off. Notice how I'm holding her hand down.
Forgot to bring her cute pink sun hat, so we borrowed.
Hi Nana! Thanks for taking me to the pool!
We took a lot more pics on Mom and Craig's camera but I don't have them yet. If there are any great ones I'll share once I get them.
For those of you who don't know, I was really excited about the wedding last week. But not excited enough to get up (or stay up) in the middle of the night to watch it. So I recorded it and we had friends over at 1pm on friday to watch it and have a wedding reception. It was a lot of fun! I've been re-watching my recorded shows and looking at everything online about the fashion, behind the scenes, etc. Here are some pics:
I've had several people ask why I care so much. I think there are a lot of little girls who grow up watching disney movies, playing dress up, twirling in ballet class, dream of being a princess. Kate gets to be the princess! Now, I'm realistic enough to know she isn't living a fairy tale life. I know she has paparazzi in her face, the weight of about 40 countries on her shoulders, the self-esteem issues we all struggle with, pressure and judgement from millions including the reigning Queen of england. I know that this marriage may end just like Prince charles' marriage or it may last and be happy (as far as I know) like the Queen and her prince. But it was fun just living the fairytale side of it. Plus, like any of our US events where there's high fashion (the Oscars, etc) it was fun to see the British spin on things.
So, before I even start posting, let me say I am very frustrated with myself. I forgot to take pics of us as a family when we were all dressed up and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We all looked very nice yesterday but in typical "mom-ness" I only thought to take pics of Hannah. It wasn't until I was putting her to bed and we were both in our pjs that I realized we had taken no family pics. I'm still upset today about it. We had a very busy day and it just escaped my mind. (I will be sure to do better for Mother's day when we will all be dressed up again!)
We got up early to get all dolled up for the 9am easter service. Then we came home and got ready to have 14 people to our house for Easter lunch. Then we had company from about 1 till 8:30. We had a wonderful day! And, we came out ahead because once people had left we discovered a bounty of treasures-wonderful mashed potatoes made from a super secret recipe from JJ, delicious chocolate covered strawberries and pavlova dessert from Beth, a sippy cup left by Holden, yummy peach tea brought by the Wrights, strawberries from Tim, and spiral sliced ham from the Hunters!
Saturday we dyed Easter eggs with Hannah. In my mind I envisioned a fun, glee-filled experience as a family. Thats not exactly what I got. I should mention Hannah has 4 giant lumps on all her back gums and two have recently sprouted sharp points. She has been extra cranky, fussy and clingy the last few days. We started with Hannah standing on a kitchen chair pushed up to the island. I was right there with my arm around her. Well, she slipped off the edge of the chair and I caught her before she hit the ground but she was very startled and wouldn't calm down. I tried to distract her with the stickers for the eggs-lesson learned, Hannah is afraid of stickers! yes! She did not like them at all! She didn't want them on her hands or on her shirt. She wasn't too sure of them being on me or Jesse either. So she just kept crying. This was my wonderful egg dying experience! Fortunately she did like the finished product!
I walked around the living room "hiding" the eggs and she followed behind me picking them all up and putting them in a basket! I couldn't believe she got the concept. It was so cute. We hid and found the eggs about 3 times. She loved it. She also loved clapping the eggs together, which makes me thankful they were hard boiled!
So, enough talking, now for the pictures you've all been waiting for (especially Ashley :) )
Jesse and I both really enjoyed our pastor's Easter sermon. For the last couple months we've been doing a series on pain and he wrapped that up yesterday. We've been learning how God uses pain for many reasons-to remind us of our need for him, to teach us something, to bring us back to Him, to empathize/minister with others in the same position. There were many more reasons, but these hit home for me. Yesterday was a message of hope. He said "Raise your hand if you are a member of the human race." So of course, thats everyone in the room. Then he said, if you are a human, you will have pain in your life. Some will be kindergarten level pain, some will be graduate school level pain. Some will be physical, some emotional, some mental. But there will be pain. We have hope. The pain ends if you have trusted in Jesus as your savior and Lord. We have the hope of eternity in Heaven with Him, pain free. Our pastor told about his sister who had struggled with extreme depression her whole life and died because of untreated breast cancer-she had lived a very painful life. But when she passed away, having believed in Christ for her salvation, she passed into eternity pain free and what a joy that is. We finished the service by singing the song "I Will Rise" by Chris Tomlin and it really hit home. I am so thankful for the hope of my future eternity with Him. Please read the lyrics (emphasis is mine)...
There's a peace I've come to know
Though my heart and flesh may fail
There's an anchor for my soul
I can say, It is well Jesus has overcome
and the grave is overwhelmed
The victory is won
He is risen from the dead
And I will rise
When He calls my name No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise, on eagle's wings
Before my God
fall on my knees,
and rise...
I will rise
There's a day that's drawing near
when this darkness breaks to light
and the shadows disappear
and my faith shall be my eyes
Jesus has overcome
and the grave is overwhelmed
The victory is won
He is risen from the dead
And I hear the voice of many angels sing
Worthy is the Lamb!
And I hear the cry of every longing heart
Worthy is the Lamb!
I will rise
when He calls my name No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise, on eagle's wings
Before my God
fall on my knees,
and rise...
I will rise....
I will rise....
