Love

Let's keep it short (for now at least)...

It's crazy how much I love these little pooping-whining-hitting-biting-fussing-never sleep enough -peeing on the floor-cat chasing-sticker eating-crazy girls of mine! :)

Spring time cuties

I love spring! I love how green everything gets. I love how much you love the sun and warmth when you haven't experienced it for four months! I love getting the kids out of the house and letting them run with reckless abandon. I love how everything is new in the spring... new grass, new babies, lovely new-ness all around. It's so fun to share spring with my new baby. She's just old enough that she's exploring everything and curious about everything and notices everything. I take her outside and she just seems to soak it all up. Sharing all these firsts with a new baby - it just doesn't get much better than that!

And for those of you that are curious... Brielle is 7 & 1/2 months now (OH MY GOSH! Where did the time go???) and weighs about 17 lbs... which is roughly what our cat weighs ;) lol She's almost crawling, but not quite yet. She scoots herself forward by pulling with her arms or rolls anywhere she wants to be. She's also getting on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth - she's so close!

She's toothless for the moment, but not for long! She's been cutting a tooth on her bottom front for quite some time now, it just hasn't poked through the surface.

She's such a joy! She doles out smiles and giggles readily and loves completely. She adores her big sister. Sophie can always put a smile on her face by singing or dancing or twirling in circles. Brielle also thinks that sounds are completely funny. You pull packing tape from the roll (and get that kinda squeak) and she busts out with a belly laugh. You sneeze and she giggles. You slide a magnet down the fridge and she can't think of anything funnier (video of this one to follow). She's such a sweetie and finds joy everywhere. I pray that she always is able to keep this quality.

Grumpy Ol' Troll

Ever watched Dora? Well we're big Dora fans around here. If you've seen an episode where they go over the troll bridge, you've heard the grumpy old troll song. If you haven't... you're about to :) Sophie's singing it and even trying to do the gruff troll voice. It's pretty cute (if I do say so myself!).

Kids say the cutest things!

Every night before Sophie goes to bed, we go through the (seemingling endless) bedtime routine...

Bath, a Dora/Diego show (while lotioning up, jammies, milk, etc.), then family scriputre study (aka - reading a short section of the scriptures and trying to explain what happened), family prayer, potty, night-time diaper, brush teeth, book, Sophie's prayer, hugs & kisses, tuck-in, more hugs & kisses, singing, and finally... more hugs & kisses.

We've been saying family prayers and Sophie's prayers for quite some time now and she does most of them herself (her prayers anyway) and sometimes we help just a little. I've been meaning to post one of her night time prayers on the blog for quite some time and I keep forgetting... so here one is. It is SO cute. What a sweet little girl.

"Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for Mommy, Daddy, Brielle. Thank you for Grandma & Poppa, Kassi & Joey (her aunt & uncle), and cousins.

Thank you my toe-nail polish. Thank you mom-go-exercise and I go play. Thank you for Dora. And big Dora. And Dora doll. And Diego. (All of these are her 'little dollies' that go with her doll house.) Thank you for watching TV (I promise we don't do this much, it's just one of her favorite things). Thank you for the library.

Help my owie right there (as she lifts up her pant leg and pointing - I guess showing God just which one she means). Help it feel better.

(This is the only place I help) Please help me to sleep. Please keep us safe and healthy.

Name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

How'd 6 months go by SO fast?

Brielle is doing great! She's now almost 6 & 1/2 months now and I just have no idea where the time went! It seems to be going even faster than it did when Sophie was little... I wonder how fast it'll go with a 3rd or 4th kiddo. Maybe that's why those crazy people have 17 of them... :)

She's sitting up like she's been doing it for ages and rolling all over creation. She's also pushing up on her arms but not her knees yet. And she loves eating! lol (As you can see from pictures!!) I nurse her and she gets at least 2, if not 3 bottles a day, plus1 to 2 meals of baby food. lol She's a pig ;) lol She loves baby cereal and sweet potatoes the best. (We haven't done any fruits yet though, just cereal and veggies.) This is also sooo different than Sophie. Sophie would breastfeed and drink bottles, but basically hated all other food. Plus, she was such a skinny-mini. She was always like in the 10th percentile (or lower). Brielle is pretty steady at 50th percentile. (And they both are at the top of the charts for height! :)

What I love the most about her is that she's such a joy. She smiles at practically anyone who talks to her, sneezes, hiccups, dances, laughs, smiles, talks, or breathes. She sits there with me while I bathe Sophie and just rolls with laughter at Sophie's splashing. She had been sleeping through the night for a couple months, but I've been trying to get us on a nap schedule and it seems to be back-firing - she's waking up at night now! ugh. We'll get that figured out though.

Anyway, she's doing great. I don't know exactly her weight - her apt wasn't exactly at 6 months (it's next week), but I'm guessing 16 - 17 lbs. Ahh, what a fun little girl!

My little loves

Ahh, my little loves. Here's an update on them...

As you can see, Brielle is getting to be quite the chunk ;)

Sophie was always (and still is) a skinny little thing, normally coming in at 20% for weight and 90% for height. Brielle is about 90% for height had 50% for weight, although I think that percentage might go up next time we're at the dr! ;)

She's sitting by herself so well now!

And adores her sister. Sophie can make her smile almost no matter what.

Darn, I don't know why this pic posted sideways, it's not in my files that way. I love this one of them. So cute. As you can see, Sophie adores Brielle too! :)


Ahh, my girls. They seem to have the same nose and definitely both of them have my eyes (yay!). The shapes of their faces is different, as are their ears and haircolor. Our opinion - Sophie looks just like me (wow, baby pics of me really show this) and Brielle seems to look like Aaron's sister Sasha.

lol - I tried to geta better picture of this, but the star was not allowing photographs that day ;) She's rocking her pink Dora hat 90's style!

Ahh, she's going to be so pretty as she gets older (I mean, I think she's very pretty now, but I think she'll always be pretty - ya know, not little girl pretty. Oh, why can't I explain what I mean? Arg.)

Here's our cat. His name is Teancum (tank-um if you ask Sophie). He totally is a dog in a cat's body and is soooo protective over Sophie and Brielle. The other day both girls slept over at my mom's house (yes, the first night away for Brielle) and Teancum seriously freaked out the next morning when the girls weren't there. He was running into their rooms, back to mine - meowing loudly, then back to theirs, then to the living room, etc. looking for them. All the while meowing. He was very worried. lol

Yummm, her first bite of 'real food.' Although, I'm not sure if you can count rice cereal as 'real.' (unless you're talking 'real' nasty)

I always bring my camera when I have to take the kids to the dr's office. Its great entertainment. We take pics and then look at them, take video, etc. The camera and the Ipod - wonderful!

Where have YOU been?

We've been here... but you never would have known that with the amount of posting going on around here! I thought I needed to show off a little bit of the girls... wait, that sounded wrong. You know what I mean - my daughters.

They're getting so big! Sophie is potty trained, although we still have a few accidents every once in awhile and we're not trying to night-train for a little bit.

Brielle turned 5 months old yesterday - can you believe it? I can't - it's CRAZY! We're about to start her on solid food (oh that rice cereal looks soooo appetizing!) and also move her from the bassinett to the crib. She's rolling over, putting everything she can get her hands on into her mouth, and still our happy little girl. I hope that attitude carries through with her throughout her life. We have enough drama from our little mama :) (yeah, you know that's not me, right?) Here's a few snaps of the last month or two.

Ahh, Sophie and Mommy. I love, love, LOVE that the girls got my eyes. It makes me smile every day :)

Brielle lovin' her exersaucer (although I think we're going to get a new one - this one just isn't that fun). Sophie seems to play with the baby toys more than the baby does! lol

I know that part of her head is cut off, but come on - can you get a better smile than that?
I HAD to include it! What a CUTIE!

Ahh, the many faces of Brielle, our beautiful Brielle!

She's such a light in our lives!