More of the Same

I have already said most of this, but here are some new pictures. Mason is crawling very proficiently now and will often go off on his own to new rooms in the house (when Brenna is not around to harass him!). Brenna loves him so much, but the problem is she wants to play with him and that doesn't often go over well. It is fun though to see them play and laugh together occasionally now that he's a little older! She's a good big sister, and today at the store, she turned around in her seat in the cart to stroke Mason's face and sing to him because she thought he needed to go to sleep. It was so cute, even if Mason didn't think so. She would pull his blanket up near his face, then stroke his cheek and sing made up songs in a sweet little voice to him. I almost got emotional right in the store at what a sweet moment it was!

Mason's favorite toy is cords, and he will crawl anywhere to find them. He finally took a bottle the other day, so we are trying to grab onto that and get a little more freedom as parents! He has been sleeping a little bit better sometimes, and that has also been an incredibly nice break for me!

Brenna is still potty training, and it's still not going great. She has good days, but most of the time it's a struggle, and she still won't go by herself, I have to remind her and then physically take her as well. I am so excited for the day when I can say she's trained! It will be a joyous day! We don't want to continue buying diapers for two, so I'm determined to see this through... sometimes.

Brenna has been learning her ABC's and their sounds and is pretty good at most of them now. She loves playing with blocks and reading and coloring and driving mommy crazy! I sometimes hope Mason will stay a baby so that I don't have to have another toddler so quickly! Although that's not very fair because I also love watching Brenna learn and grow and she makes me laugh often throughout the day as well. Hopefully after the multiple accidents a day is done, I will have more patience again!

She also loves playing outside and will sneak out there almost anytime I'm not looking. It's still so hot out so I try and keep her inside, but shoes or no shoes she could spend hours out there in the heat. This morning she snuck out while I was feeding Mason and she was still in her PJ's. Here she's showing me her bucket she has filled with rocks!

As a final side note, I have been trying CouponSense for the last two months, and it's been pretty fun. I get really stressed and nervous before going shopping because I want to have incredible savings and I have gotten tons more stuff than usual for about the same budget as before (our grocery/food budget is only $160 already, so it'd be hard to dip below that for a family of 4 with or without coupons!) so that's been nice. Today I was all geared up for my trip though and spent nearly an hour at a store finding all the right things and everything, and I got to the checkout and opened my wallet to find that Brenna had removed my credit cards at home, so I didn't have them. I was pretty sad since I had planned on hitting two other stores while we were out, but I will have to try and go without kids tomorrow or something now.

Crawling and Friends

A quick update on my kiddos! Mason can now crawl, and Brenna has a new best friend! Here's a video to show it!

Brenna's friend is a Talking Tom Cat application that Jeremy got on his phone. Brenna is obsessed with it, and we spend the whole time laughing when she's playing with it, so it's a win-win!

So, the other day I went to the store, and came out feeling a little low on self esteem. I wonder if I'm the only person who has no backbone. Let me start by saying that I don't like pushy people because I know I have a hard time standing up for myself under that sort of pressure. Back when we first got married and we were living in an apartment, I went to get the mail one day and on my way there I noticed that there were some young men canvassing our neighborhood selling something. I made a mental note to not open the door if they knocked since I didn't want to have to deal with it. Just my luck though, they noticed me walking to the mailbox, and when I came out and headed home, they were waiting for me. They cut my route off and ambushed me. They were near my age and they had a system. They pitched, I said no thank you, they flirted, I tried to escape, they pitched again, I stuck my ground and this went back and forth for maybe 10 minutes, and then I finally got past them, still having held my ground, and feeling pretty good about it, and they asked if they could get a drink. I was getting upset, but I gave them a drink and tried to send them on their way. They kept pushing and pushing, and finally, just to get rid of them because they were making me uncomfortable, I bought the magazine subscription they were selling (after he assured me that I could cancel for a full refund) and they left. I IMMEDIATELY called the number to cancel and get a refund, but I was still left feeling like scum. Why couldn't I just say no and be assertive and send them on their way? Jeremy also was a little frustrated because people were always coming around our apartment selling things and he wanted to know that I could say no to these people so we didn't go broke.

I have been getting better over the years at being more assertive in those situations, but I still avoid them when possible and get nervous and anxious when I know they're coming. The other day, I went to the Carter's store to get some clearance clothes for Mason with a gift that my aunt sent me (thanks Aunt Lynn! I got some cute things!). They were having a big clearance sale, so I was excited to stretch my $20. As soon as I arrived at the store I was uncomfortable though. I was one of only two shoppers, and an attendant right away was on my case. She kept trying to steer me away from the clearance and towards the more expensive items (still on sale, might I add). I finally picked out the clearance items I wanted and I was anxious to pay and leave. At the register, she continued to try and upsell me, but I assured her that I had no intention of going over the $20 gift I had gotten. To my dismay my items only came to $15 something. She immediately directed my attention to some other things on sale that were way more than my limit. At this time, I had a crying baby, and Brenna was trying to shoplift her 3rd or 4th item (not to mention that if she did get out the door, there was the hazard of being hit by a car as well). In utter frustration I grabbed whatever she was telling me was a sale to die for and paid. I spent an extra $16. Of coarse, I just plan on going back to the store and returning the extra items that weren't on clearance, so I will get the money back, but I am left wondering why I can't just be strong! Do I look weak-willed and so sales people automatically are drawn to me? It sure seems that way!

In the future, I am going to try harder to not give in to pushy sales people. I hate having to make another trip just to return things I didn't plan on buying in the first place. I don't want to be rude to these people, just assertive I guess.

Am I the only one this happens to??

Let me start out by saying that I sure do love this kid. His smile brings me instant joy and I can't stop kissing his cheeks. I think he is perfect in almost every way. Now, to vent for a minute, I said ALMOST every way because, this kid WILL NOT SLEEP! I may exaggerate a little in that statement, but it is only from frustration and lack of sleep. I am sitting here right now trying to distract myself while I, once again, listen to him cry in his crib after waking up from a nap which is supposed to be about an hour and a half, but which ended up less than 30 minutes. I keep going in to soothe him, but this has been going on for a couple of days now, and I refuse to pick him up after such a small cat nap when that means he will just get up and be cranky until he's ready to sleep again! He is usually such a happy boy when he's awake, but the last few days have been a bit of a roller coaster for him! SO, I just need to get this off my chest because it's not easy as a mom to listen to your child cry and not know how to help!

This is probably only really frustrating because, even though he is 6 1/2 months old, he has yet to sleep through the night with any sort of closeness or regularity. In this he area he is a difficult baby, but in most others he's a dream. He is up to eat usually twice a night and another time or two just to get his soother back and some reassurance. I know I'm only one in MANY sleep deprived moms out there, and I probably don't have it as bad as I think I do, but man, it'd be nice to have him sleep more soundly like he did when he was new!

Still, love him tons and wouldn't trade him for another baby who slept! Maybe for an exact replica that slept well though! haha just kidding.

And on another note, who couldn't love these two goofballs too. I am definitely one lucky girl, and it's nice to be reminded how lucky with moments like this!

I'd like to take a moment to brag about my husband. Today we got our monthly MetLife newsletter in the mail, and guess who had half a page devoted to him. This was distributed to all of the pacific southwest region on the company, and I'm pretty proud of him. He's acting like it's no big deal, but I mean, not everyone gets their picture in the company newsletter! I'm proud of him for all of his hard work!

Here are just some random cute pictures from around here lately. This first one is of Brenna dancing, but she didn't want me taking pictures of it.

This one is funny probably mostly just to me. Brenna is not potty trained yet, but everyone knows when she's pooping now. She hides, and she gets really upset if you look at her. I was being rude and taking a picture of her in her embarrassing state.

These are the two most perfect loaves of bread I've ever made! Still a little more dense than we would like for sandwiches though.

Mason is getting close to crawling! I can't believe how big he got so fast! He already weighs as much as Brenna did when she was one and he is only 6 1/2 months old! Such a cute little stud, but growing WAY too fast!!

My two studly men at the water park. We've had fun there this year with our season passes!