Her First Real Injury!

So Amelia got her first real injury last night, no big deal in the grand scheme of things, but definitely a bug deal for us, and mostly for her!

She was playing while we were sitting in our living room after dinner, and was playing slide down Paul's legs, which is a regular occurance around here! Long legs=super duper little girl slide. Well, one minute she is sliding, and suddenly she caught, note: jeans are not very "slidey"!, and flipped fast and hard into the corner of the coffee table. I thought I saw the really sharp corner that she hit go right into her neck, Paul though he saw it hit her eye, and Kenny saw it hit her nose. It was so fast that she actually ended up splitting the skin between her nose and her lip right open and it was a pretty good one! I looked like it was pretty deep, and it was split in three places, sort of like a y-shape. She was pretty hurt and scared, so we decided to play it safe and take her to the ER, since it is only a few blocks away. She got really scared at this point, thinking that the doctor we told her we were taking her to was going to poke her (I think she associates doctors with immunizations!), and felt very afraid. I helped her to say a little prayer in the car on the way to the hospital so she could be brave and not be too scared. She was still afraid, but was such a big girl. We had a long wait in the waiting room (I almost took her home several times, don't even ask me how ridiculous that was!) and then finally got to see the doctor. The nurse was really great, and helped her into a gown (aka, a special princess dress) and it turned out that the location was probably keeping it mostly shut, and it didn't need stitches, which made her very happy, although sitting still for the glue stuff they put on it was hard for her. We finally got home, although that was pretty late, and we went right to bed!! She was such a good girl, and we were really proud of her!! We love you baby! Here are some pictures, although they aren't great, you get the idea!

Looking a little swollen and worse for the wear

you can kind of see the Y shape in this one

this one is a little further away, but you can see the start of the bruising she has today

Isn't she lovely???

At Least it hasn't been forever!!

I badly need to get out of the habit of thinking that I have nothing of importance to write about! I want to be able to have this as a record, so everything is important! I need to remember that even the little things mean a lot after a while!

Well, Let's start with the littlest member of our family! Ben got his first little tooth last Saturday (April 2nd), and then got the second on tuesday! Two teeth in 4 days! Talk about hectic. He is not quite as great of a teether as Amelia was (I didn't even know she was teething or anything, i just discovered it one day, obviously several days after it had come through!) but he is a trooper (as long as there is Tylenol involved ;) He is a good little sittier now, and even figured out his own little army crawl this last weekend! Talk about a milestone weekend! He is getting pretty fast at getting around, especially since rolling to where he wanted to go was pretty unreliable, it would sometimes take him several times to get anywhere. He is such a little ray of sunshine around here, smiling and laughing almost all of the time! Oh, and he has also learned how to smile for the camera, and can say mama and DAAADDD (that's his favorite;))We think he's just about the cutest little man around!

Yogurt....YUMMY!!

our two cuties, all wet after their bath

Seriously!! I love it!

Next up is our little miss. She's, well, she's just her. Lately we hear a whole lot of "all. by. MYself!" and "NO, don't touch that!" and some more "DON'T!" Ask me how I feel at about 5pm most days, and you might just get more than you bargained for! Sugar and spice doesn't even hold a flame to my girl. She can be as sweet as all get out one minute, and the next...holy flip, she's insane! I love her to death, but my girl's got a mind of her own, and an OPINION! It's hard for me to get that through my head sometimes, cause she's still just my little girl in there, but she is definitely not that in real life! She is getting so big and learning so many new things so fast, that it can be hard at times for her to know what she is and isn't capable of doing entirely on her own. It's also really hard for her to understand that me saying no does not warrant a full on fit! Let's see...socks and shoes, it takes you an eternity, but yes, you can.....wash and rinse your hair, probably not...pull the covers up, absolutely!.....use a big knife to cut a slice of bread, and then butter it with the same knife, HECK NO! Now multiply that by about 100 times and 100 situations, and you might get a glimpse of a hour in my day!:) Oh, and you musn't forget the 1000 times of "Get off of your Brother!!" She is our little miss, and we love her a LOT!

Other than that? well, she has now gotten 3 of her 4 2-year old molars, which I think is pretty cool, but looked like it must have been really painful! We have been doing our own little mommy school, and every 2 weeks we focus on a letter, a number, a shape, and a theme. This week was Z is for Zoo. We learned z starts zoo, zebra, and zipper, and all about circles. We have been learning about the number 6, but that one is a little harder for her. She LOVES to learn new things, and loves the extra attention and time just for her. She also loves when it is her craft time! Although it does take some thought on my part to come up with crafts and things that reinforce our theme, but her reaction and excitement is worth every minute!

She looks so old to me here!

Painting for craft time - her first time with watercolors

Her favorite new nightgown - or dress as it MUST be called!

our Goofy girl!

On our walk, splashing inn all of the puddles, although there weren't as many then as there are now!

Things are pretty much the same for Paul and I. I have been running in the mornings before paul goes to work, and I super wiped the other day on an insane patch of ice, so that was the end of outdoor running in the morninge for a while, at least until all of the snow and ice is totally gone. I decided to go to west ed instead, since it is only about 5 blocks from here. Its warm, and dry, and empty so early in the mornings. It's also nice not to have to worry so much about someone trying to hurt me or anything (yes, that thought does cross my mind in the dawn hours when i am all alone, hence why one hand is always on my cell when I am outside, even though I am more then likely being paranoid!) since there is security in the mall, and I see them roaming around while I run, and there are other people (seniors, mostly) walking/running in the mall in the mornings. It feels good, but I must admit, My main motivation right now is the warm bath I have when I get home. I make sure to leave the house 15/20 minutes earlier, just so that I have lots of time to relax/meditate, and mostly rest before everyone else in the family wakes up!

We have also been getting really excited about our trip, 6 weeks to go!! We can't wait!!

Around our House!

So things have been a little hairy canary around here lately, and it's been like pulling teeth just to get back to some sort of normal routine. But lets not get into that!

Amelia is becoming such a big girl lately. She is now completely potty trained, which ended up not being nearly as difficult as we thought. She was totally ready, and aside from a few accidents here and there, she has been so good! We are pretty proud of her. A few weeks ago I took her to the open house for the preschool she'll be starting in September, and she had such a fun time! She played at the sand and water tables, in the house area with the babies and play food, and, in her words, "did gluing" and loved every minute of it! She will have a great teacher, who happens also to be the wife of our stake president, and is very excited to "go to school and get a new backpack!" She was really sad to go home that night, which made me feel a little bit better about registering her. I had to tell her all about how she would come back, and what would happen just to get her to leave the classroom! She has also been getting very good at praying, and wants to be the one to say it all of the time! If anyone else starts, she'll just repeat what they say. She is such a good helper and a joy for us!

Ben is growing a lot, too! He is getting pretty good at sitting up, although he is still pretty wobbly! He is our hungry man-he LOVES to eat! He hasn't shown any signs of foods he dislikes, which is even better for us! He does get pretty mad though if we are eating and he isn't! He is a wanderer these days, and between rolling and pushing himself backwards he can make it all over our house! This last week we hung some boards in our loving room so that we could hang our jolly jumper, since the doorways in our house are only drywall, no trim. He absolutely love it, and will stay in there and giggle and jump for a long time! This last week we also decided to switch to using cloth diapers on Ben. I have been thinking about it for a long while in the back of my brain, so finally I sat down and did a bunch of research, and talked it over with Paul. We decided that it seemed more realistic than we first thought, and to just go for it. Within the first few diaper changes we were convinced. He has been a little red and irritated for a while, although it's not a diaper rash. It just didn't look comfortable. Not to mention the blow-outs. Seems like every poop these days is a blow-out, causing me way more work and laundry anyway! As soon as we switched the redness went away, and we noticed right away how dry and happy his skin was, even with a really wet diaper! Not to mention that we quickly realized that it wasn't nearly as hard or complicated as it seemed, by a long shot, and that it really wasn't a lot of extra work, since i do at least some laundry every day already! We also came across several different articles in our reading about the amount of chemicals in disposable diapers, and the number of lawsuits and class-action lawsuits about babies getting chemical burns, etc. from disposable diapers. There was also talk about how they are starting to link the increased amount of male infertility to plastic disposables coming out and it overheating babies at a young age. Now I'm not saying that any of this is absolutely proven, but it was enough to make us think and decide that for us, it wasn't worth the risk, on top of the ways we saw it help Ben physically and the cost savings with not having to buy diapers every month. But don't just take my word for it! I encourage any of you out there with kids who are reading this to read and find out for yourselves, and then decide what is best for you and your baby! Then whatever you choose, go for it!

Other than that, the kids and I were really sick for a while two weeks ago, which was pretty scary, but after a stressful trip to the ER with ben and a crazy routine of antibiotics and inhalers, we are back to normal, which is a lot less worrisome!

OH! I also forget! Paul was told in February that His work is sending him to California to do some BMW repair training. We decided after a little research and figuring, that we would use the opportunity to go on the honeymoon we never had, and go just the two of us! We'll be gone for a week, and are really excited! Especially me! Although I am a little nervous about leaving my babies for so long! I've never been away from them for longer than an overnight! But I think it will be really fun and a lot easier to do this one ourselves, at least until the kids are bigger. We plan on doing a few of the parks, and little kids, while it would be fun, would be a lot more work and stress! 67 Days and counting! I can't wait! Here are some pics before I go!!

Cute girl with new 2-year-old molars!

Amelia's first time skating on skates, not her boots!

Look at those baby blues peeking out!

Our cutie boy

Her face after chocolate fondue for FHE on valentines day, she decided to sing popcorn popping with chocolatey hands...if you know the song you know what i mean!

Mom left the bowl on the tray....

big sitting boy!

My Sweet babies! I love these kiddos!

Look what I did mom....this girl could do crafts all day long!

This makes me laugh every time:)

like I said......

Jumping...can't stay still long enough to get a clear picture!

Like Father, like Daughter! Oreos and milk!

Pretty Girl!

Oh man...!

DISCLAIMER: I wrote this like 2 weeks ago, and somehow totally forgot to post it! But most of it still applies!

Ok, so life with 2 kids is, simply put, crazier than one! But I made a resolution this year to try and record a little more of our lives around here, and lot just let it all pass by! My babies are growing up so fast, I feel like I am missing so much! I have decided that doing these random and rare posts and trying to catch everything up is not working, SO, I am just going to start from here, and fill in the gaps where needed.

Yesterday was a LONG day. Enough said! Ben is teething, and is a little monster, especially since his pain seems to interrupt his sleeping. hmph. Yesterday he woke up at 5 in the morning! That makes for a crabby mommy when you wake up 2 AND A HALF hours EARLY!! So I decided to try and push past it and get some projects off of that endless list of crafty/homey things that I want to do! Last week I bought a can of paint to finish painting some picture frames and a shelf that I want to put up in Amelia's room, when we get to that one on my list! Nap time seemed like as good a time as any, so out it all came, and It was working, until Ben woke up early and then not long after Amelia cut her nap short. BAHH! OK, I can do this! Right? So I even ventured to get out her paints and paint with her, too. She had a great (and messy) time, and ended up with some good looking pictures, which, not surprisingly, all look pretty much the same! This is not hard to do when you mix all of the paint into one bluish-purple color.

On to the rest of the day...Ben is now a master at rolling onto his belly, and does it pretty much every five seconds! But, unfortunately, this is where the novelty wears off. He has yet to master getting back onto his back. It has happened a few times by chance, but not regularly. Once over, this is where he stays! And then, he complains, because that is about his least favorite position in the entire world. I'm pretty sure he even likes being upside down better! So over to him I go to turn him back over. Now repeat this about 150 times a day, and you are beginning to get the picture. He does get a little better every day, and I do have a hope that this will not go on forever! I have been leaving him to try and figure it out on his own, and he has started pulling up his legs under his belly, as if to crawl, which is pretty fun. He is nowhere near crawling, but it's cool to see him getting there.

Well, I could go on, but I need to dress my naked daughter and get my house in order-Paul and I are going to a session at the temple tonight and then helping to clean it.

Yes, that is a pair of shorts...

She licked the plate clean after waffles!

Our handsome smiler!

Turn me over!!