Things I don't want to forget...

 So after adding another little beauty to my world I have realized how fast time slips away. It wasn't too bad after I got used to Reese, but now I have less memory and less time. I keep a journal for the girls, just little things here and there, but sometimes I get busy and forget to take the time to write down the things I don't want to forget.  So I have thought of some of the things from this year that I don't want to forget.

Yellowstone, Bear exhibit June 2012

1.  When we were on our way to Yellowstone in June, we stopped at Arctic Circle to eat.  Jake was eating, and well when he eats he usually is wearing some of it on his face.  Reese was sitting next to him and all of a sudden she said, "Mess. Dad. Mess" and then handed him a napkin.

2011 Dodge Journey we said goodbye to :(

2.  Jake coming home the day before my birthday saying, "We are going to start doing something, and I don't think you are going to like it...."  this was when he decided to start paying tithing, which lead him to sacrifice some of the things he really wished he didn't have to...the nice car, eating out, and pretty much being flat out broke.  But this is the beginning to the end of our journey to the temple to be sealed forever.  <3 best.birthday.="best.birthday." ever="ever" gift.="gift." p="p">

Reese in the Nibley baby contest.

3.  Reese copying everything I say, and now she loves to say, "Thank you, so much, so much," to everybody for everything.

4.  Seeing Aspen for the first time, and not being able to wait to hold her. I couldn't wait for the nurses to bring her to me, even for the night feedings. I was so excited! I couldn't sleep, so they gave me some sleeping pills to help.

5.  Reese always wanting to hold Aspen all the time. Reese loves her so much! She will only show Aspen certain things and not us. Like when I wanted to see her do a "front flip" (somersault) she would only show Aspen. Reese claps her hands at me when she wants to hold her and then she says, "hole her."

6.  When we sold our car before we wouldn't have been able to make a payment.  Reese getting potty trained at 25 months old! Having Jake at the hospital when Aspen was born (Tithing blessings.)

7.  When we bought our Elantra and Jake had to work on it, Reese was always out there with him. One day she was not really paying attention to anything Jake was doing, just swinging on the handrail by the stairs in the garage, he just finished doing something kinda important, and she looked at him and gave him the thumbs up and said, "Good job, Dad."

Going to lunch with grandpa and getting her this huge cotton candy that she devoured!

8.  Reese wanting to put makeup on with me in the mornings.  I love it. I won't lie. I think it is adorable that she wants to play dress up.  While putting on make up one morning, she looked at me and said, "Mommy pretty." Melted my heart!

9.  Reese doing hair the way she sees me do other people's hair.  But sometimes it hurts. LOL

10.  Reese kissing Aspen while in my tummy.

Reese eating batter from her birthday cake

11. Reese watering my flowers outside. Reese helping me mix the cookie or brownie batter.

12. Going for long walks in the summer with Reese and Jake.

13. Reese grabbing my face when she has something important to say and telling me, "Listen." Or when she tells us "Having fun" and nods her head like it's fact.

14. Jake always kissing me goodnight and before he leaves for work.

Reese's first day at nursery 2/12/2012

1st day after nursery-couldn't make it to lunch

15. Reese learning how to say a prayer, and in her prayer praying for "Assen, mommydad, grampas, Asher, Jesse, Tyler Bakin, Pocket, chooch, Jesus, wook. AMEN!" (Translation: Aspen, Mommy and Dad, Grampas, Asher, Jesse, Tyler Baker, Prophet, church, Jesus, work. AMEN!) She will sometimes include grandma, but for some reason it's just grampas.

16. Reese dancing to the Wiggles, her favorites are "Hey Pirate Dancing's Fun," "Emu," "Rockabye your Bear."

17. I love seeing the excitement on Reese's face when she discovers something.  Everything is still so new and amazing to her!

18. Reese knowing how to count to 10 and sometimes 13 before she was two! She could also sing her ABC's!

Years ago, I would have said you were crazy if you would have told me I would be this lucky to have such an amazing life, but I guess there is always something that makes you appreciate what you have.  I am sure blessed. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but I hope I can be truly deserving of all that has been given to me.

Our new life!

Summer is winding down, so I have a little bit of time to update; unless Aspen decides to not cooperate.  We   were able to sell our car in June, so that was a blessing.  Our house is still up for sale. We have had a few people interested, but no one serious yet. We are keeping our fingers crossed.  Our basement is almost finished, so hopefully that will help.  It will be nice when we have our home built and we don't have to worry about moving.

 I am trying to think of all the things we did this summer.  We stayed busy even though we didn't really do anything big.  We went to a lot of events around the valley.  The last few months of pregnancy weren't comfortable, as was expected, so that limited what I wanted to do.

  I was so nervous about having the baby. I really wanted to do a VBAC, but didn't want to go through hours and hours of labor, only to have a c-section and months of healing.  On August 1st, I went to my doctor's appointment.  He had been running non-stress tests on Aspen to make sure she was doing ok, since at my ultra sound she had been measuring 3 weeks behind.  He wanted to make sure she could handle the stress of labor. She did great, no problems or concerns.  Well at my doctor appointment, I was dilated to a 3, so he decided to strip my membranes to hopefully speed up the process.  Since I pretty  much have the worst luck ever, I wasn't expecting anything to happen.  On Thursday morning I mowed our weeds, hoping to put myself into labor, since that's what had happened when I went into labor with Reese.  Later that night on  Thursday, I went out to dinner with my good friend Jenn.  I had started having contractions that were pretty intense, but they were never consistent or regular, and of course when I started timing them they either stopped, or quit coming as consistently. I joked that McDonald's would be my last meal before I went to the hospital, and it just so happened to be that way.  The next morning I woke up and had some contractions and bleeding and decided to go to the hospital. I called Jake and told him I was on my way to the hospital, but told him not to get too excited since I would probably be sent home.  The doctor came and checked me and I was dilated to a 5.  So at about 11 am they broke my water.  Jake's mom was the first to show up, and then my mom.  My contractions still weren't coming as strong as they wanted them too, so when Jake got to the hospital we walked the halls, and I still hadn't progressed, so they gave me pitocin, which did the trick.  I wasn't too uncomfortable even though they weren't a picnic.  I was checked and had only dilated to a 6, so they turned up the pitocin.  A few hours later, at around 3:30pm I decided that I wasn't tough enough and asked for some kind of medicine.  They gave me Fentanyll, which worked for like 30 minutes, but then it didn't do anything for me after that, and my contractions were seriously not letting up, and my back labor was horrible! After trying to tough it out, the nurse came in and turned down the pitocin, but that didn't help.  I guess the baby decided it was time to come.  I lasted as long as I could without an epidural, but caved when I felt the baby coming.  I was seriously so happy when it kicked in.  After that our Aspen Brielle was born at 4:34pm.  So it went really fast. I was dilated to a 10 by 4pm, so pretty glad it went the way I wanted it to without complications.
 Aspen has been such a good baby.  After I brought her home, I had to wake her up to feed her, which was totally opposite of Reese. Reese would wake up every 2 hours! It's been a nice change to have a baby who sleeps at night-well kind of.  Last night she didn't wake up once, however, she hates going to sleep.  I can start trying to put her to bed at 9, but she usually fights it until about 12.  She isn't fussy during the day at all, it's just from about 9 until she falls asleep. I don't know what to do, and she sleeps good other than that, so I can't really complain, but if you all have any suggestions or ideas let me know. I have tried putting her on a schedule, and that doesn't work. So let me know.

Aspen Brielle, August 3, 2012 6lbs 4oz, 19 inches long

What's going on

  I'm actually now 29 weeks, but apparently my camera didn't work, so I will have to take more.  This baby sure knows how to find my ribs-ouch!!! Reese wasn't in my ribs like this, oh well I don't have too much longer. We have just put our car and house up for sale, so hopefully they sell as fast as what we would like.  A lot of people have been wondering why we are selling.  We are trying to simplify life a little by getting out of debt and we also want to build a house that we plan on staying in.  Now that kids are actually coming, we want something that we won't grow out of.  We have found a few lots that we really like, but we aren't getting too excited until our house sells.  The market is really bad,  there are so many houses for sale.  So if anyone knows of anyone looking for a house send them our way.
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=475&ad=20632049&cat=279 
http://www.ksl.com/auto/listing/9747269

 I wish that we could go back in time and just know what is going to happen.  I don't think we would have bought the house if we knew that we would finally have children, but I guess we make choices so that we can learn from them.

  Reese has been singing a lot of songs lately.  She sings "up above the world so high" from Twinkle Twinkle.     She sang "round and round, all through the town" from Wheels on the Bus today.  She copies everything we say now, so we are always on our toes hoping we don't teach her anything bad.  

 I am so glad it feels like summer! I can't go for as long of walks as I would like since my bladder is constantly squished, but just being outside is amazing.  It's also pretty fun to take Reese to the park.  She loves everything now.  However after her little slide accident in Preston she is way more cautious, which is nice because she really doesn't have any fear at all.

 Sorry there isn't much to update, we are just trying to make everything fall into place with our house, car, finances, church so I have been pretty MIA lately or just busy.  I'm definitely feeling the last few weeks of freedom slip away, since I know I will be even more busy having a family addition soon.  Just trying to get what I can done.

Putting on makeup

Black eye from falling from slide :(

Pregnancy memory

5/11/2012

I wrote this next post to remind me of the joys of pregnancy.....warning lots of complaining...
 
26 weeks is definitely getting uncomfortable! Sleeping is a challenge, heart burn, a toddler squishing me and baby, crazy hormone changes... Apparently the brain forgets these things even just 21 months after your last pregnancy! However, I feel like my hormones are way out of wack this time, everything else is also a little bit worse than last time, but I only have 14 weeks or so left and then it will be a bit more challenging in other ways.  I guess we go from one challenge to another.
 Things have been more than tight with finances lately.  We are honestly probably the most limited we have ever been- and hope to be! The doctor bills are what is crazy! Right now we pay close to $300 a month on doctor bills, and for July and August we will have to come up with another $370 for health insurance.  We have just started paying tithing as well. In the scriptures it says to prove that God won't bless us if we pay our tithing-I do feel comfort in that , even though it is hard to let go and have faith.  We have had blessings already.  Jake has had 2 full weeks of work, a guy that Jake helped on the side of the road brought us food, some of our bills have been lowered.  We have shut off our tv and gotten an antenna, but found that we actually get more than what we were paying for! We will soon be cancelling internet as well.  I guess we still need to sacrifice to prove ourselves as well.  I keep wishfully thinking that Reese will all of a sudden get potty trained as part of our blessings.  I know it's a long shot, but I did say wishful thinking.
 We are going to hopefully be putting our house up for sale.  We want to build, and get some things paid off so that we aren't so tight.  So for now I would have to say that we are living on faith and continue to try to live worthy of all of our blessings we are so grateful for.

24 Weeks and Easter Post.

23 Weeks

24 Weeks

Time to start whipping out the maternity shirts....I've been able to wear some of my t-shirts so far. This pregnancy has flown by since after week 12! It's crazy that in less than 16 weeks we will have another child.  Reese loves to kiss her baby (my belly), she has also been taking care of her babies as well. She feeds them her milk from her sippy cup, and wants us to diaper them too.  She has started acting like a baby lately too. She wants us to pretend that she is a baby.  She has found a binky and has reverted back to using it, well when she has found it again.  Hopefully she won't be too jealous when her sister is here.

          Easter 2012. We went to the egg hunt in Preston. When we got there of course she wanted to get all the treats, but after the firetruck siren sounded she didn't know what to think, but she had fun and loved all of the treats she got!

 The picture on the left was taken right before she started freaking out once she took a good look at the easter bunny.  The picture on the right is what the bunny left at Grandma Brenda's house.

 

 Reese Picking buttercups-an easter tradition. 

Reese Decorating Eggs for the first time. Let's say that most of them were thrown into the cups.