What I've Been Up To

Well I have been slacking on the blogging lately, and I'm sad to say this will not be much of an improvement. I keep opting for the ease and speed of just uploading pictures to Facebook for family to see, and since I just went through them and there's so many and it's hard to decide which ones I want, I am going to just do that again with the exception of these few:

This is a changing pad that I made for my new niece Ava! I forgot to take pictures of it before I gave it away though!

This is a dress I just finished today for Brenna's birthday. I have one more to make before she turns two!

This isn't what I've been up to, but my sister and brother-in-law just had this beautiful, tiny, baby girl this week. 5lbs 6oz makes her the smallest baby I've ever held! So precious! Not the greatest picture, but trust me!

While Sylvia was in labor I had her girls over hear, and they ended up needing to sleep over... we put a movie on for them and they were so cute watching it... for like 10 seconds at least!

Anyway, we've been keeping very busy this week and with two kids! I will post more pictures on Facebook too, but here's a reminder of what Mason and Brenna look like these days! haha

Brenna's always wearing my shoes these days.

It's hard to catch a smile on camera, but here's my little stud!

Brenna sure does love him and now that he's a bit more durable, she's able to show it more!

As a side note, I heard that some people were a little concerned about me and Mason after my post about his crying. Although I wasn't exaggerating, things have gotten better for the most part, and we are fine. I love him and love that he's smiling and talking more and more. I was really lucky with Brenna that she didn't cry much at all, and so I did feel a bit out of my element dealing with a fussy baby, but we're into (at least sort of) a groove, and I hope it just gets happier from here! Thanks for the concern!

New Rooms

The kids are in their new rooms! Brenna is officially in her big girl bed and Mason is officially (mostly) in his crib and his own room. Here are the new rooms finally all put together and functional! There are a few changes I'd still like to make, but they may be a while coming if they happen at all... we'll see.

Mason's Room:

Inside the room

This is the view from the door.

Close up of the crib. I love that we found this bumper at Ross and it happens to match the walls perfectly. Now the improvements I want to make are to make/get matching sheets and a skirt for the crib because it looks a little silly the way it is. I was really proud of these homemade crib sheets, and I still think they're cute, but they DEFINITELY don't match.

Brenna's Room:

Her Bed

Her dresser we found on craigslist for a great deal!

Bookshelf and bed. The reason for this picture is so you can see the improvements I want to make on her room. I want to put something on this big bare wall above her bed. I was thinking of getting some vinyl letters that spell Brenna to put on the wall and then put up some pictures beside them, but I haven't been able to find anyone that can do vinyl letters... know of anybody, or have any suggestions for this wall? I want to do something!

View from the door... this is the guest bed that pulls out to a King if we have company. The quilt on it is the one my mom made for me. It has L's on it, and I love the colors!

Brenna's doing pretty good in her big girl bed too... as long as you wait until she's asleep to leave the room at least! Then she's amazing!

Baby Blues

This is Mason. He is my 2 month old son. He is VERY different than my daughter was at his age. Brenna was a very happy baby. She would sit there and smile and coo and she really didn't cry very often. Mason on the other hand, if he isn't eating or sleeping, then he is usually crying. I have been frustrated with this because it makes me feel a little out of my element. He is occasionally happy (as pictured) but it seems like it's pretty rare to catch him at a good time. Nobody will believe me because he seems to be good when we're out or around people, it's just when we're home that the crying ensues.

This weekend was really nice because Jeremy was home, and since having two kids, I REALLY appreciate having him home to help! He's a great dad, but he too was frustrated by the endless crying. But, it seems, right when you're at the end of your rope, Heavenly Father helps make it all ok.

Last night at around 11:30 after trying to put Mason in the crib a couple of times but he would wake up and cry, I was holding him our bed and telling Jeremy how frustrating this was. How did he even know the difference from his bassinet to his crib anyway? He's just a baby! We noted the difference between Mason and Brenna. Brenna was a dream baby for the most part. She would be happy nearly all the time (unless it was time to eat... she was a horrible eater). Mason is not that way. He isn't often happy to just observe or lay or anything. We decided he's just not a very happy "awake" baby. So, I decided to try ONE MORE TIME to put him down in his crib, but if he woke up I was just going to put him in the bassinet again, resigned to the fact that I have an unhappy baby :(.

Lo and behold, he did not wake up... for a very long time! Too long actually! Brenna woke up around 3:30, so I went and put her back in bed and then I had to check on Mason to make sure he was ok. He was breathing and everything looked in order, so I went and laid back down. I couldn't sleep though because I was sure as soon as I did he'd wake up. He slept till 4:30 though! And more impressive than that, he didn't even cry the whole time I fed him, changed him and put him back to bed. I was actually almost sad to put him back to sleep because he was being so good and it was fun to see him happy. But I did, and he went right back to sleep and slept until 8:30! He NEVER sleeps past 7! So, it was a good night and I got some much needed sleep for the most part! And I am going to do my best to help Mason be a happy baby!

Side note: Mason was two months on Saturday, and we went to the doctor today. He is growing very well. He is now 23.75 inches long, and 11lbs 13oz. That is pretty average all around, although the doctor did seem pretty impressed with how tall he was, it's only between the 50th-75th precentile... his head is apparently ginormous though coming in above the 95th percentile... big brain!

Videos

Here are a few videos of our life lately. The first one... keep the volume low.. I didn't realize how loud I can laugh! This is the prank I kept trying to pull on April Fool's day... it never really worked, so I'll have to keep working on getting it right.

Ok, This one is of Brenna singing I Am a Child of God. It's not the greatest, she usually sings a few more of the words, but it's the best one I have on video! She is starting to sing all sorts of songs and I absolutely LOVE it!

Lastly, Brenna dancing. Also not the most interesting video, but I don't know if anyone understands how much this girl likes to dance. It's just recently that it's become so crazy. Any time there is any type of music on she dances and if she is in a chair or a shopping cart or something she will flip out until you put her on the floor so she can dance (I don't go to stores with music anymore) and if there's no music and we are home she will drag either Jeremy or I over to the piano and make us play so she can dance. It's hilarious! I can't dance AT ALL, so I can't teach her any good moves, but I teach her some lame ones! She'll try and copy any movements you make, and this is so fun! The part I think is the neatest though is that she's so graceful! If you're playing a nice, soft song, she'll dance slowly and move her hands and arms so sweetly, and many of her moves even look like ballet, and if you're playing an upbeat song, then she really boogies. Anyway, this is a new phase, and one that is very entertaining! I think we will put her in dance or gymnastics or something as soon as she's old enough and when we find a class that's cheap enough! This video doesn't even show half of what I'm talking about, but again, it's all I have on video! Use your imagination, and I'll work on capturing some of the ballet on video too.

On My Mind

So, I usually write about my life, and I plan to continue doing that, but this one time, I want to write about something that's on my mind. I have been unable to get this off my mind for over two weeks now, so I thought I'd just put it on paper!

So, it's always been a little irritating to me when people say things like "oh you just have one kid, wait till you have two, you'll realize how easy one was" or "two is a breeze, it's the transition to three that is killer", or other such things. Things that make you feel like you are somehow in a less worthy (I don't know that that's the right word, but it's the best I can come up with) phase of life. More than a few times I've been saying something to the effect of how tired I am or how rough a particular night was with my oldest and someone has stopped me and said "oh, that's nothing, just you wait."

To add to my ponderings, I overheard a conversation at church a few weeks ago that has me irked. the people I overheard were visiting our ward, and they are people who I respect and admire, which is why I was so surprised to hear this conversation. One of the ladies was saying how she had a relative who had had a baby a year or two ago. This relative of hers had been living at home with her parents at the time, and apparently she was complaining all the time about how hard it was to be a mom and other such things. This girl is now about to have her second child, and is no longer living at home or with any family near by. So this lady went on to say that to teach her relative a lesson, she hoped that this new baby was a very cranky or difficult baby just to teach this girl a lesson about being a mom. She said things to the effect of "life goes on so deal and quit complaining".

Now I am not trying to say that everyone should go around complaining freely and nobody should ever stop and say suck it up or anything, I just have to say, that I would bet that when people who say things like this were young and had just one kid, that they didn't think life was a total breeze either. That there were times that were difficult and you may even have complained or at least had personal private moments where it was tough. And then when you had two it was hard to, but that doesn't mean that suddenly life prior to that had been easy.

All I'm trying to say is that just because somebody might already have 5 kids or something and I have only one or two, it doesn't mean that my life is easy and theirs is hard, it just means we're in different stages and have very different struggles and joys.

I'm not trying to be rude, and I don't even remember particular people who have made these comments, I just know that every time I hear them I'm tempted to respond, but instead I smile or laugh to be polite. I am going to try my hardest not to say anything like that to a young or new mother because I remember that it was hard with one sometimes! Sometimes, life was even hard with no kids at all! haha anyway, I don't think I'm alone in this... nobody likes to be made to feel like they are somehow inferior or something for being younger or whatever the case may be. Alright, no more blogging about thoughts, just life.