wHoley Typeos!i!

Yeah, just read through my last few posts...someone is sleep deprived, methinks.

Halloween Sneak Peak!

I'm so excited to celebrate Halloween tomorrow! I've had fun making both girls costumes. For more than a year I've been seeing refashion projects on blogs and I've started stashing things (instead of Goodwilling them) to have a refashion supply. I tried to make some doll clothes last Christmas (good idea, mediocre execution) and then goofed around trying to make a dress that I will probably still finish for this Christmas for Jane. But in the last month I've had some rocking successes, including this year's costumes. I've been wanting to experiment with ruffles, roushing (how the crap do you spell that?), and knits and this gave some good experience. So here's what I've got:

Homemade Baby Witch Costume

I pulled out Ye' Ol' Make and Do Book from Days of Yor and there were instructions on how to make a cone hat, out of felt. I think it turned out pretty good! Then I took a pair of leggings I'd bought last year at Target dollar spot (way close to Halloween or after for half off) and cut the legs off and those are the green arm warmers you see. I used the rest of the leggings as a kind of cap to keep Emiline's head warm and keep her hat on. The dress is cut from a too large underarmour type garment. I used the original neck whole and just copied one of her other dresses. It was incredibly easy to do! The stripped leggings are actually the inspiration piece. They are a Baby Legs knock off and she wears those regularly and every time I have them on her I think how cute they'd be as part of a witch costume. Ta Da! Hopefully we'll get some cute pictures of baby in costume instead of baby napping and costume on floor. All I spent this year was 87 cents plus tax for the three pieces of felt. And the 50 cents last year for the leggings.

Jane's costume really is more of a sneak peak, it's nearly done, though. I've got to get her kitty cat ears done and that's pretty much it. The top is made from a legging of an old pair of lounge/yoga pants. It is way cute on, and doesn't look crooked at all (it is very crooked). I'm also proud of the tail. Again I used half off target dollar spot leggings in a creative-ish way. I made the tail out of that same shirt I used for Emiline's costume, stuffed it with some old pilly pillow flush and a piece of wire. Then I cut the legs off the leggings and used them like bloomers and sewed the tail to it. The legs of the leggings will be arm warmers.

Toddler Kitty Cat Costume

Total cost for Jane's: a $1.00 glittery black headband that I may or may not actually use. $.25 for felt and $.50 for leggings from last year, although we used those a lot so it's technically a refashion.

We've got a packed day tomorrow! I feel so blessed to be able to have the energy and strength this year to make costumes and actually take the girls out!

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk...

If you give a mommy a few hours to herself, she'll get addicted to the feeling and stay up til almost one just being herself. *sigh* Good day.

More Leaves, No More Fall

One Sunday afternoon I made Eric help me take some more pictures out behind our apartment. We got a few that are at least half good. The weather has turned now and the stupid leaf blowers came by a few days after we took these and after several hours of really annoying noise took all the leaves away and left a big cloud of leaf dust around our building.

Looks like I'm raising a couple of tree-huggers....




Later guys! Don't you wish you were cool like me?? You can, just find a a pile of leaves to chill-lax in.

5 Months Old and Potty Trained!

Emiline is 5 months old today. And Jane is potty trained!! Woot! Woot! I'm planning on writing a post about that later, but lets just say it was a blast! She was ready, I was ready, and it was a party every time she had a success. She's been in panties almost a week now and just had a handful of accidents.

Emiline is working on being a steady sitter. It's fun to watch her figure out her balance. She's definitely into grabbing and wants to look at everything. She's incredibly strong and has a pretty high metabolism because she drinks a lot of milk and is pretty slim. She's always kicking and doesn't hold still unless she's sleeping. She's very much into music and her sister. She's so easy when Jane is around playing. Constant entertainment. She loves new faces and I love this age!

Here are some pictures!

Sisters, sisters, never where there such devoted sisters! When Emiline woke up from a nap, Jane wanted to get in her crib and read her a story. I think she liked it.





Jane has the craziest morning hair. Mine hair isn't even a bit fine so this ratty thing is totally new to me.

An attempt at a family picture. We kept cutting of Emiline's face and this was the best one we got.

Daddy is the best reader of stories. He is, as Jane would say "so silly!" He never reads the words the same way twice.

Hope you liked! We sure love our little family. I'm doing my best to enjoy and delight in this time.

Wading in Slowly and Taking the Plunge

We've been doing a bit of potty training here and there for about a week now. Jane's idea. Well, she started asking to wear panties. We now have 5 gold star stickers on her potty symbolizing her successes. I'll hopefully post more later on all that. We are taking it slow and not really pushing it yet.

We are however plunging forward with letting the girls share a room... I'm not convinced now is the time and I have no idea how this will all go, but they are both in the kids room right now, at this very moment, as I type, NOW. Just before naptime we set up the crib and Jane seemed fine with the idea it was for Emiline until I put the mattress in. Then she insisted it was hers. I did my best to remind her she wasn't a baby and pointed out the cool things big kids do, like having treats. Yes, I headed off a tantrum with a dum-dum. But it was logical and made a point! I also let her have one of Emiline's binkies for a little bit so she could indulge in pretending she was a baby (she doesn't even know how to use the thing...). I think it worked rather well. So far. Knock on wood. I've been telling Jane she will get to share a room with her sister just like Charlie and Lola and she seems to like the idea.

I'll keep you all posted in how this all turns out (crossing every crossable appendage now)

Better

If I kiss you where you're sore,
if I kiss you where you're sore,
will you feel better? better? better?
Will you feel anything at all?

If I believed in those music players on blogs (or knew how to put one on...;-), you'd be hearing Regina Spektor's Better right now (the lyrics written above).

Things are a lot better the last couple of days. Not really sure why. The girls are feeling a bit better, Emiline is sleeping a bit better, I'm hurting a bit more but somehow all that adds up to a lot better. Could it be because I spent 4+ hours painting and crafting for my niece's birthday party this weekend??? Probably. I don't think it's the weather, but that has been really nice. Emiline loves it.


Here's the thing, the thing that I keep forgetting:
If mommy ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
I keep forgetting to "nourish" myself (yes that sounds hokey) in the ways that really matter for me. I've had to make going to the gym a priority for my health and then there is the endless list of house stuff that has to be done. And then the basic basics of caring for my two girls

and on occasion me. It's really easy to let those really key things fall threw the cracks until I'm feeling crazy. And sometimes you have to do something that doesn't make sense-like going to a late movie (with money you borrowed from somewhere else in the budget) with a friend and laughing your head off and then staying up too late. Then Emiline had a bad night so I got like 3 hours of sleep (btw, this was the night of the last post)...and yet, I felt pretty good on Wednesday, even though I had a very noisy MRI (I get the results on Friday). Tired, but good. Sometimes making the "smart" choice isn't so smart, right? It's just so hard to know.

I usually think that if I can just pray, read my scriptures, and be healthy (exercise, eat right, etc) every day that I will be happy and at peace. But I have found that just focusing on doing those things actually makes less happy and more mechanical (because I'm not perfect and don't do them everyday. But IF I did do them everyday, maybe I would be at peace?). In the meantime, I need to do those things that add color and brilliance to my life, for me. Painting is one of those things, apparently. So is laughing and connecting with a good friend every week. Or climbing a tree.


It's so easy to turn to distraction and sugar to ease the pain: i.e. Hulu and dark chocolate covered pretzels. I've decided to try very hard to make my "downtime" more "uptime." Or doing things that bring me up and the word I keep coming back to is brilliant, like when you get the saturation on a photo just right.

Like, when Emiline woke up Tuesday night and coughed every 2 minutes for an hour. If I hadn't gone out with my friend, I would probably have been frustrated and only full of obligation. Instead, I actually relished cuddling her and soothing all her pathetic whimpers so she could sleep. It was a sweet, brilliant moment.

And tonight as I put Jane down I was completely exhausted with various aches and body complaints. She did nothing especially cute or sweet or anything. But I was there, saturated in the moment and I just enjoyed her usual antics and felt so full of quiet joy singing her a lullaby and kissing her good night.

I just need to find what's sore and kiss it better, I guess.
and throw leaves.

Rough

It's been a bit rough around here of late. I didn't even blog about Emiline's 4 month stats because she stopped sleeping through the night...she's 50-50-75 for percentiles. Although I don't remember which she's 75 for...
Sleep deprivation is all well and good when your babe is a newborn, you are expecting it. You're hunkered down and not expecting to add anything else to your life, just get through it. But once they start sleeping through, life begins to open up again. Or you think it will. So maybe I jinxed myself. I should just plan on not sleeping for the first nine months, right? boo.

Anywho, I've become something of a time miser. Usually I love to donate my time to helping so and so with whatever, which includes helping my husband with random school things. But these days I'm a bit like. "Nuhh-uhh! That be my time! Getch yo' hands of my time!"

I have an MRI tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, we'll find something and there will be a possible end in sight for low back pain. I told Eric last night that I was sorry that I wasn't the wife he married. He laughed at me because he's awesome like that (btw, Jane said awesome the other day. It was, of course, awesome). But it's true. I feel very different. My energy is so depleted and the list of things I used to accomplish in a day now takes me a week or more to do. And let's not even talk about the crazy that is me and my moods. Mostly I save all that for Eric. Poor man bears the brunt of my swinging emotions. Blah, blah, blah. Point is, I'm in a weird place over this whole MRI thing. I met with the neurologist today and actually really liked him and it all went really well, better than I expect of doctors at any rate. I was really nervous for it and so was kind of a case yesterday.

and Emiline just started crying which means good-bye Marcee. Hello Mommy. Sigh.

Eric will be home late every night this week. Double Sigh.

Please Don't Leave a Message

Yesterday we were waiting for Daddy. You know, white-knuckle waiting. It had been one of those days, even for Jane. We even went outside on the "lawn" of our apartment so we would see Daddy that much sooner. Eric said he'd be home at 6:30. When he wasn't home at 6:29, we called him. I put it on speaker and as it rang Jane said, "Daddy, please don't leave a message!" She REALLY wanted to talk to her Daddy. When he picked up she said "Daddy, where are you? Are you on the bus?" Then when she saw him walking to us from across the parking lot she got super excited, walked to the end of the sidewalk jumping and shouting, arms out: "I need my Daddy!" Ditto, kid.

Happy is the New Boogers

puffy eyed Jane this morning sans boogers

We've been MIA. Last Wednesday was Emiline's 4 month appt. Shots made her quite sad for a few days. And nights. Which made Mom sad too, or rather tired. Not only did she wake up 3x a night, but she took 45 minutes or more to settle back down. Jane began a runny nose last week, too. Which turned into goopy eyes and a fever by Friday and thus a doctor's visit yesterday. Double pink eye and a double ear infection. Man, I'm glad for antibiotics. I'm not looking forward to a whole winter of ear infections, however. And I'm hoping and praying Emiline doesn't get any of it, although she woke up last night with some congestion so I let her sleep from 3:30 on in her swing. We've decided we need to get serious about preparing Emiline to share rooms with Jane. Right now, Emiline has little ability to self soothe herself back to sleep, thus all the night wakings. So I've formulated a plan for that (I blame it all on the binky...and the fact that I'm so spineless and can't stand her cry, it's so piercing!) and hopefully we'll have them sharing soon!

Now the reason behind the hilarious title:
Jane, now that she is sick and covered in boogers, is no longer interested in them. She's sad a lot of the day because she feels so crappy. She is no preoccupied with being happy. She'll tell me with tears in her eyes just two seconds after she's been wailing about something: "Mom, I not sad. I happy!" She'll also tell me and Emiline that we aren't sad either. It's pretty cute. Thus, Happy is the New Boogers.




And here's a short update on my 4 month old (man I love this age so much more than newborn!) She's finally started to show more interest in toys, a blessing and a curse. At the moment, Emiline gets super frustrated with her toys and her "playing" doesn't seem all that fun, for both of us. In particular, there is a shiny butterfly under a plastic dome on the saucer that makes her cry every time. She can't get it and gets so frustrated we have to take her out. I've even taken to covering it with a burp cloth and it helps her play a bit longer. Until it falls off. She's also nailed herself in the head a few times with rattles as she was shaking them so vigorously. I don't remember this stage with Jane, if it happened or not.

Conference was a different experience with two babies, especially with one of them sick. One was pretty much crying the whole time and didn't really nap during sessions, darn it.



But we had fun anyway. It's been really a treat to see sister love bloom already. Jane loves to help and play with Emiline and Emiline doesn't like to be awake without her sister, they are both much easier these days when they are both awake.