Friend Time.

Sometimes Laura comes over and I make her dinner and then we talk about every single thing under the sun. I LOVE Laura. She is one of those friends I can be completely myself around. And we look like a couple in this picture which makes me laugh for days. (we made Curt take this pic. guess how excited he was about that??)

Tonight I made roasted carrot, sweet potato and red potato soup, SO easy and SO delish. Then we made Valentiney sugar cookies! Laura is so serious about decorating cookies that she brought tweezers! Tweezers that she only uses to decorate cookies, to pick up tiny sprinkles! I love it so much!

While she was here we talked about the 5 love languages (I just read the book for my book club) we talked about how our husbands or partners or whatev usually fulfill one of our love languages but how great it is to have girlfriends to fulfill your other love languages. For instance, words of affirmation, as girls we are really good at saying how great each other looks, how talented each other are, and how all around awesome we are. I am so happy to have so many great girlfriends to fulfill my love needs, ha!

I decided February is the worst with one awesome day- Valentines. Looking forward to my traditional family Valentines dinner, what foods can possibly be made heart shaped??

Who blogs anymore??

Well for starters, my mom does. EVERY DAY last year, can you handle that? If I had a diet coke for every time I wish I would have written something down on this blog......... Anyway, what I would like to say is that I intend to blog more. I intend to capture more of the funny, cute, annoying, silly amazing things my children (and husband) do. I intend to to write about all the things that make me happy. Because I agree with Lindsay I like to talk about the joys.

I also intend to write about some of my worries or hard times. I am sincerly thankful I wrote about my struggles in the last couple years on this blog. When I go back and read them I can remember exactly how I felt, it reminds me to feel more deeply the joy I am now feeling.

So who blogs anymore?? ME!

On  a side note: my new years resolution was to always have my nails nicely painted at all times and I am KILLING IT.

Gwen loves her mom

These are the things I accomplished ALL while wearing baby Gwen in the baby Bjorn:

1. Cleaned the kitchen top to bottom including mopping.
2. Made homemade pizza for dinner.
3. Helped Deacon brush his teeth and tucked him in bed.
4. Vacuumed
5. Moved along tons of loads of laundry.
6. Made chocolate chip cookies.
7. Loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, twice.
8. Took out the garbage and recycling.
9. Helped Deacon do math homework.
10. And most impressive: painted my nails.

I feel like a total granola,  a extremely productive hippie. I actually really love wearing her in the Bjorn or the sling, she snuggles right up. I am pretty sure she loves me, a lot. With that being said, my back freaking hurts.

p.s. special thanks to one of my besties Jenny for lending me the Bjorn, obviously I would get not much done without it.

p.p.s. you will be happy to know I took her off to clean the bathroom and change my sheets.

Bubbles.

Have you seen the movie knocked up? One of my most favorite parts is when Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen are sitting in the park watching the kids play with bubbles, Paul Rudd says something along the lines of: "kids love bubbles, I wish I loved anything as much as my kids love bubbles" Makes me laugh every time. Bubbles are fun.

Today I went fabric shopping with my mother in law (she is making the babes blessing dress, yay!) she offered up my father in law to watch Deacon while we went. Deacon was so excited to spend time with his Grandpa rather than in a fabric store (obviously). Curtis' dad is getting older. No way around that. It is hard to see the ones we love get older, especially when it seems to happen overnight. I feel sad when I realize that my kids will not get to know their grandparents as well as I wish they would.

When we pulled up to the house Deacon and Grandpa John were out in the driveway, I could see that Deacon looked to be running circles around John, when I got closer I saw that John was blowing bubbles and Deacon was chasing them.

It may not seem like much, but as I pulled up and saw the look on both their faces I tried to freeze that moment because I want Deacon to remember a Grandpa who spent time blowing bubbles for him because guess what? Kids love bubbles.

The craziest thing

She has started sleeping too long in the night. Doesn't that just sound so ridiculous? All this time I have been working to teach her to sleep, in her crib and for long periods of time. I did not stop to think I would miss holding, rocking and kissing her in the dark quiet hours of the night. Ha!

Truthfully I am so glad she is sleeping more, it gives her the energy she needs to smile all the time, look cute and start to coo. I love love love Gwennie.

Having a baby around is such a delight. It is the kind of thing you never want to end but cant wait for the next step all at the same time. Super weird and super awesome all at once.

The Family

 Here we are now, family of 4, I am still pinching myself. This month has absolutely been one of the best of my life (also one of the most draining, emotional etc. etc.) I wanted to record a little about how each family member is faring.

Deacon has been downright delightful. So helpful, sweet and loving. He is known for his high pitched voice in which he talks to the baby. One of my favorite things he says when he hears the baby crying "oh! you want your brother? Is that the problem?" He is always asking to teach the baby, saying "do you wanna learn?" and then he teaches her to clap or shake hands or whatever else. He has fallen right into the big brother role better than I could have ever asked for.

He is also still a major lego fanatic and is becoming such a wonderful reader, I LOVE when he brings new books home and reads them to me. He loves school and playing with his friends, and I love him. Last night he snuck into my arms in the middle of the night and I remembered just how thankful I am for my sweet firstborn boy.

 Me? Well I turned thirty, I can not complain, I have more than I could ever ask for. A new baby girl in time for Christmas and my birthday was sweeter than I ever knew possible. We celebrated simply but I made sure to have a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and a scoop of plain vanilla ice cream, I ate that for more meals than I should admit. I think thirty will be great.

 This baby is a dream. She only cries when hungry or when she needs to be gently rocked to sleep. Loves a binky popped in her mouth and a bum pat. Is totally at home tucked in my sling (pictured above) and nurses like it is her job (and it is!) If I think about what it took to get her here and what a beautiful miracle she is I just cry. In the middle of the night I love holding her while she nurses and saying my prayers thanking God for all I have. To say I love her is just too simple a statement. I LOVE her.

I just love Curt's face in this picture, so funny. Here he is with the whole gang. Deacon loves spending one on one time with him and likewise. Curt stays so busy with work, playing basketball and taking care of us. He is a great dad and husband, even though a new baby throws everyone through a loop I am so glad we are in this together. Happy to be in this family we have created.

Wishlist

Gwenyth PEARL Leasure

6 pounds 13 ounces

19 inches long

 

Here she is, the babe of my dreams. The baby I prayed, hoped, wished and longed for. The fact that she is here now is still hard to wrap my mind around, all throughout the day I look at her and thank my Heavenly Father for this most precious gift.

 

The days leading up to her arrival were some of the longest days. My sweet doctor told me on Tuesday at my appt. that "the baby could come any minute now!" I took that to heart and expected her to truly come any minute. The silver lining about the waiting on eggshells was that Curtis and I talked a lot about her coming, made plans, said prayers and had conversations that are some of the special we have ever had in our marriage, ones I will treasure always.

 

SO, on Thursday night late when the contractions started I did not really believe it, but eventually we made it to the hospital Friday morning around 4 am. I think the nurse wanted to send me on home but luckily after walking around for 30 minutes my labor had progressed enough for me to stay and have a baby, yay!

 

The next couple hours was filled with slow progression, we did not tell anyone we were at the hospital, it was our fun little secret.

 

By 10 am I had progressed to a 10 and was ready to push, Dr. Terry was awesome enough to wait around after his shift to deliver the baby, once he came down to labor and delivery I was ready to push.

 

This was the part Curtis and I both dreaded, I pushed for 45 minutes with Deacon and it was HARD. I was anticipating a long hard period of pushing. The labor and delivery nurse was so wonderful and Dr. Terry was awesome. Push once, twice three times and one soft push and she was out. They put her on my chest and I was so overwhelmed, I just cried my eyes out. I looked up to Curtis and he was crying too. I knew that he felt as I felt, we had waited so long for you baby, and here you are.

 

If you know Curtis at all you know his love for the band Pearl Jam runs deep. When baby Gwenyth was born on Pearl Harbor day it just felt very fitting to name her middle name Pearl.

 

When we drove Deacon home from the hospital Curtis had a special song picked out to listen to on the way home, it was of course a Pearl Jam song and whenever I hear it now it reminds me of that sweet memory.

 

The song he chose for our sweet baby girl was Pearl Jams Wishlist. These lines are my favorite:

 

I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on
I wish I was the pedal brake that you depended on
I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down

I wish I was a radio song, the one that you turned up
I wish...

 

One thing I wished for was this baby. If no other wishes I have in life come true that is just fine. This wish was THE wish and we are so thrilled it came true.

 

Welcome to the world Gwennie Babe.