A few pics of the girls

I've been playing around with the computer the past few days, trying to get some pics of maddie for her birth announcements (they will be mailed soon!) So I've gotten tons of cute pictures of my girls. Here's a few Taylor was trying to love on maddie... it kinda made maddie mad!

Taylor's trying to pick maddie up... that's her new thing. She's always trying to pick madison up.

Taylor's telling maddie some super important story!

Maddie's practicing for the Mo-Tab!

Maddie eating taylor's face!

Though the paci is blue... we had to get it.

Taylor loves to put her forehead on on your forehead when she's talking to you... maddie doesn't love it so much!

My sweet girls!

Too Smart

I can't believe the things Taylor comes out with sometimes. I just had to go to the bathroom, and I've been taking her with me for a while now, trying to get her ready to potty train. She usually just plays in there though. She went and got into my drawer in the bathroom. She got out my moisturizer, pretended to pump it out onto her hand and rubbed her hands together like she's seen me do a million times. Then she got out my toothpaste (which is a white bottle like my deodorant and shaped kinda like it too) and raised her shirt up and rubbed it on her belly. I'm sure she was doing what she thinks I do with it! I just had to laugh. She is REALLY watching me, and doing what I do. I love it.

Lately she's been starting to say sentences. They're usually just 2 or 3 words. But yesterday we were reading one of her books of nursery rhymes and there was a moon on the page. She said "whoa, it's the moon!" When I told chris he laughed and said that's what he says to her everytime they see that picture. We've also been teaching her to say "I love you" lately. Well, today, I had tackled her and was holding her real tight and she wanted to get loose so I said, "Say I love you" and she said "I love you mama!" I was so excited, I had to call chris right then and tell him! I'm the happiest mom in the world today!

There is a downside to all this talking she's been doing. Her favorite word ever is "NO!" and she says it with such an attitude. I didn't know a girl so young could be so SASSY and DRAMATIC. Yesterday, I was holding taylor like a baby and she said Down. I asked her to say please and she said No, and smacked me! Not hard, but enough to make me pretty mad. I sat her right down in her bed for a "time out" and she sat there like nothing was wrong and asked me for some juice. I told her she was in time out and she wasn't getting juice. She didn't get it. So i put a chair facing the corner and sat her down in it. That got the point across very well! So we now have a time out chair. She hates it and to get up, she has to say sorry and give me a hug. I don't know how much it's really working yet, cause every other word out of her mouth is still "No" But we'll see.

I'm still super happy about the "I love you mama" I got earlier today. I love this little person she's becoming... No's and all!

I'm ESME!

I saw this AWESOME quiz on a friend's blog and had to take it... So to all my wonderful twilight friends... Which Twilight Female Are You?


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

My girls

So, this is the 2nd post for today, but I couldn't help myself. I was playing around with my camera earlier and took these pics of the girls. I had to post them, they're too cute!

trunk or treat

We went to our wards trunk or treat Saturday night. Taylor had fun and it was fun to see friends from church that we haven't seen in over a month! Taylor did okay getting her candy (she filled her Elmo Bucket!) Chris took her to all the cars while I handed out candy. Chris said Taylor would act all shy, so he would hold her hand and bag out, then when people gave her candy, She's say "Bye" and go to the next car! It was Way cold though, so we left right after the trunk or treat. Here are our girls costumes.

Taylor is a poodle (i made it and couldn't find any black poufs, so i used navy blue ones... in the dark you can't tell the difference.) Maddie is a skeleton. Chris picked it out and I think it's so funny. Maddie also has a very cute beenie that says BOO!, but I couldn't find it when we took the pictures. I'll find it and she'll wear it when we go trick or treating this weekend.

Sick and Tired

No, I'm not going to be complaining about anything. I really am Sick and Tired. I've had a bad sore throat and horrible headaches lately. My two girls are sick also. Not bad, just enough to be miserable. And I'm tired. It's hard sleeping like we are. The babies keep both me and chris up at night, so no one has been sleeping. The lack of sleep has been making me feel worse too. It's a bad cycle.

But I thought I'd go on and post some pictures. we have finally started giving Maddie a Paci. She's still having a few issues taking it because we waited so long, but it's growing on her.

Here are a couple of pics of Taylor over at grandma's and grandpa's when we were house sitting. She would help chris water the tomatoes, and here, she had gotten a couple of the good ones and took huge bites out.

Here are some pictures of Maddie's first bath... in no particular order

And lastly, here's chris and taylor reading a book before bed one night. I love listening to him read to her... he's got all these voices and characters that come out when he reads :) It's pretty funny. They also go through and point out all sorts of things in the books... for example, tonight, chris taught taylor how to say star and what it is! I thought that was pretty cool.

Well, those are my random pics I've been meaning to post. I also posted some of Michael's and Leeann's Engagement photos we took earlier this week... so check out my photography blog to view those. I'll write more later, but for now, I need all the sleep I can get... so I'm off to bed!

BORED

After having a List 3 pages long of things to do for the past month... I have nothing left to do. I'm pretty sure if I worked hard enough I could figure something out... But I'm kinda enjoying it. Besides the bored eating I'm doing today. That needs to stop.

So I'm blogging, without all the million pictures I need to put up on here. I'll post them sometime in the next week, so be on the look out for all the crazy posts that are to come.

Just an update on playing with taylor, she discovered the wonderful game of "Ring around the Rosies" on Monday night thanks to Krystin and Isaac. Now she LOVES to play it. So we played that for about 45 minutes this morning! My bum hurts from "all fall down" x 50! Then, I decided we needed to build a tent. It's been FOREVER since I've built a tent! So I pulled a couple chairs from the kitchen into the den and got out a few sheets. I think it's pretty cool, not the best tent ever, but not bad. (here's where the picture would go if I had the right card reader here!) Taylor LOVES it. Of course, you can see the TV from the front of the tent, so before nap, we laid down in her tent and watched sponge bob! It was fun.

I also gave Maddie a bath today. She had a ton of fun and was smiling the whole time, No tears! My girls love water. Both of them. Maddie has NEVER cried during bath time. Pretty good for a newborn, I think. (By the way, she's a month old tomorrow. We're celebrating by having lunch with DAD!) She loves laying in her bath tub. I'm so glad. I can't wait til next summer when we can teach Taylor to swim. We're even thinking about taking them to florida! So exciting.

That's enough babbling. I'm going to go enjoy my boredom. Remember to be on the look out for pics soon!

Apples and Crackers

Here are Taylor's Favorite Foods...

Apples

And Crackers

I guess I can understand a tomato being an apple. They're both red and round.

But the m&m's being crackers? Oh well... atleast I know what she's asking for.

(By the way grandpa... Taylor LOVES your tomatoes. She helps Chris water them, and she'll grab them and take huge bites out of them! So we have to make sure if she gets one, it's ready to be eaten... she's almost gotten a few rotten bites!)

family fotos

We took a few family photos today. The first one is one of the best ones, I think. I think the attempts are pretty funny. So I've posted them too!

This last one isn't too bad either. And here's some of taylor! She's getting so big. I can't believe it. And her hair is a mess... I couldn't find any of her hair stuff... Blah! It's driving me nuts trying to find it.

I love this picture... you can see her teeth!


My girls!

Her sweet little smile.
Maddie holding her nose cause of her stinky poo!
I can't believe I actually got this one! I love her smile.

She is still doing the zoolander! And I have to say she's pretty good!

Pouty face!

I'm a walker

Yup... I have been walking. :) Since I'm here at chris's mom's and dad's, I've been watching chris's mom's "Walk Away The Pounds" DVD's. I haven't been following any real pattern. Just walking as much as I think I can that day. I walked 3 MILES yesterday! It felt so good. I'm just a tad bit sore today... not nearly as bad as I thought I would be. Guess that means I'm more fit than I thought. Not a bad thing at all. I've just been aching to get as healthy as I can. And since I can't really exercise (no sit ups or aerobics or anything for a while still) walking is about the only thing I can do. So when Taylor and Maddie are both sleeping... I walk.

I'm proud of myself. I even made me a little chart in my notebook with 8 W's on it (for my water for the day) a V for my vitamin and a little place to write how much I walked that day. Silly, maybe, but it helps me. I think I'm rubbing off a bit on chris too. Last night he said he wanted to take Taylor upstairs to play, so I thought he was just trying to give me a bit of a break. Then I heard a loud bang, so I went to make sure they were okay. He was up there working out while taylor played! I'm proud of my man. :) We're just health machines now! Except for the ice cream we bought last night! :) I have to have one little indulgence!

My sister-in-law Monica told me this weekend about a friend who sets a Fitness Goal every year. Last year she ran in a marathon, and this year she's trying out for a bikini contest. I thought this could be a great idea for me (not the bikini contest... the fitness goal!) So I'm going to look into it soon and see what other ideas I can come up with and choose one. Hopefully this little health kick of mine lasts. They usually don't, but I'm going to try real hard to stick with it this time. Wish me luck. The girls are sleeping, so i'm going walking! Maybe I'll stick with 2 miles today so I don't push myself too much.

Guilty Mom Blog

Every woman I know who has children has at some point had the guilty mom syndrome. I feel like I have it a bit more often than most! Well, Lately, I feel very guilty with how much TV taylor is watching. It's on ALL DAY. She'll sit and stare all day if I let her. This REALLY bugs me, but have I done anything about it yet? NO. Cause I'm tried, and maddie is nursing alot, and I'm trying to keep this house super clean, so Taylor's playtime is lacking right now. So, I'm making a list of all the activities I can do with a 16 1/2 month old little girl.

She's really getting into the alphabet... Weird huh? She has actually learned ALOT of the letters and can say them and point them out. R, A, S, M, H are some of her favorites. Yup, My baby's a genius! Atleast in my eyes! So One of my first things on this list is to have her help me cut pictures out of magazines of things like Apples and Bananas and Cats and Dogs, and other simple things so we can make flash cards.

I've also added things to my list like bubble time, riding in the wagon in the yard, dancing to my favorite cd's, finger painting, kick ball out in the yard, swinging... I know some of these things are kinda obvious. But when I'm sitting here with Taylor watching elmo for the hundredth time of the day, I can never seem to figure out something we could be doing instead.

Anyways, I figured all of you wonderful examples of what a mom should be out there in blogland could help me. Could ya'll send me some ideas? Keep in mind I have a newborn and had a c-section, so I'm kinda limited on activities. Thanks ya'll! I can't wait to read your ideas!

Been a while

I really haven't been much in the mood to blog... I guess I've gotten my fix from actually writing in my journal! That's right. After like 3 years of not keeping a journal, I'm back at it again. I kept journals for like 5 years. It started as a gift from an old boyfriend and I just always kept it up. That is, until life wasn't dramatic anymore. It's kind of hard to write when life is the exact same thing everyday. So, once I got married and was working all the time and so was chris, there wasn't much to write about. There were a few fun trips, a couple moves, and we bought a dog. That was it besides work and family. Then we had taylor and I was just too overwhelmed with being a mom to actually keep a journal, though I followed my sister-in-laws example and would jot little things down on a calendar so I would remember the first roll, first time she sat up, and first steps.

Since I had maddie, I've been thinking about how I'm handling this whole kid thing. It's actually so much easier than I expected. I figured I'd be crying every day and so completely hormonal and such, and I haven't been. Taylor is AMAZING about all this big sister stuff. She's a bit dramatic at times. But she has alot of her dad in her and is pretty laid back about the major stuff. And Maddie is such a good baby. The two of them have made this easy on me. Anyways, back to my journal thing... I want my daughters to be able to read my journals and maybe take something from them. I want for them to be able to get to know Me through them too, instead of only having a few notes written on a calendar like "You learned how to say ice today and followed me around all day repeating it. I'm glad you think frozen water is such a treat!" Not that that's a bad thing, but I want to write more. I want them to understand how much I love being their mom, and maybe they'll feel that way too someday.

So yeah. I've gotten my writing fix from my journal. It's a cute one too, red with white and black polkadotted ribbon on it. Chris asked me what I was doing the other night and was actually a bit impressed when I told him I was keeping a journal again. That made me feel good! Maybe he's actually appreciates that I keep up with what our girls and days are like.

Okay, so here's what's been going on lately...
Maddie had her two week dr appt last tuesday. She weighed 7 lbs. 15 oz. and is still 19 inches long. I think she may be smaller than taylor, but you never know. It's just that taylor was over 20 inches by 2 weeks. I guess we'll see in a few years what happens. She's doing great, besides the fact that she probably has blocked tear ducts like Taylor. FUN! Now I've got 4 goopy eyes to clean all the time! Although taylor will probably see an eye doc about her's before the end of the year! Maybe they'll go on and fix maddie's too. So maddie's great and growing good. She's SO much more alert now. She's awake for atleast an hour every time she eats during the day now. I actually figured out a bit of a trick for getting her to figure out her days and nights. I drank a bit of caffiene during the day, and since I'm nursing, It kept her awake a bit too. Then she was tired at night, from being awake during the day and Poof! She's got her days and nights right. Last night she only woke up ONCE! That was nice.

Taylor is doing great. I've realized this weekend what a chunker she is. Her calf's are the same size from her knees to her ankles. Does that mean she's got cankles??? I love my chubby girl. She's talking A TON today. I've never heard her talk like this before. I think the weekend with her cousins made her want to be more grown up. And she's trying so hard. She actually put a pair of pants on last night by herself. She only got them up over her knees but still. I was impressed.

I had my craft show this weekend and it didn't go nearly like I thought it would. Oh well, maybe the next one will be better, but if not, I'm throwing in the towel! We are also really enjoying house sitting for chris's parents. It's nice to just have the four of us here. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and really enjoy all the help we get from them, but it's nice to be alone for a bit.

Oh and one last update... Instead of my wonderful friends taking sady, my little sis Cayce had a fit to keep her. Cayce's been wanting a dog for a while and this way we keep her in the family. so taylor will still get to see sady when cayce visits. I'm so happy about that. I'm glad cayce is enjoying sady so much. And I know sady will love all the attention she'll get from cayce and her roommates!

So that's all for now, sorry if this was a bit long. I tend to ramble. I'll take pics of the girls in the next couple days and post them at some point. Til then, I guess I'll be trying to balance my journal writing and blogging. Hopefully I can get it figured out.