Excited

I finally found and purchased a tandem double stroller that will fit in our tiny trunk!! SOOOO excited!!!

Back to the Crib

Yesterday, I went to Callie's room to get the wipes and found the door closed. I walked in expecting to find her playing, but didn't see her anywhere. I thought maybe she was in my room, but as I was leaving her room, I heard movement. I turned around and found her here:

in Maddie's crib!

This was the first time she has ever climbed into the crib (she never even figured out how to climb out before we moved her to her bed last Christmas). She was pretty proud of herself and thought it was a pretty cool place to play with her baby and blankie.

This morning I awoke to the crackling sound of the monitor when the other end is turned off. It switched from on to off over and over again. Sure enough, when Jason and I peeked in the girls' room, Callie had climbed right into Maddie's crib, woke her up, took off her blanket, and began playing with the monitor. Silly girl!

Paci's Go Bye Bye

For months now, I have been dreading the day I would have to take away Callie's pacifiers, but I knew I needed to do it soon. She has loved pacifiers from the day she was born, and they have been lifesavers again and again, but she's too old for them now.

A while back, we tried cutting down her paci usage to just bedtime or in the car, but after we moved to Texas, she became even more attached. I decided we'd just have to get rid of them cold turkey. I dreaded the day because I was afraid of her reaction and thought she would cry for hours at night before going to sleep without a paci. The past week or so I've been telling her that her paci's were going to go bye bye soon and I've been struggling with how/when to take them away. A surge of courage came over me yesterday afternoon, so I asked Callie, "Should we go take your paci's out to the trash so the trash truck can take them bye bye?" She said, "yeah!" (I must admit, I was excited that I thought of having her do it instead of me sneaking behind her back to dispose of them.) So we both excitedly walked out to the dumpster, Callie threw her paci's in, and we bid them farewell forever. 

She seemed perfectly fine with it. Until that night. We got home from the youth activity and started getting ready for bed. It was so sad seeing the look on her face when she realized what our trip to the dumpster actually meant. She started bawling for her paci. I tried to console her as I continued getting her ready for bed, but she just kept crying. Partway through our prayer, Callie finally calmed down, but then I made a bad mistake. I prayed that Callie would be "calmed and pacified." She instantly started crying "paci-fi-er!!" I felt so dumb. I left her room and she cried for a while, but not too long before falling asleep. She cried for it today for her nap, but once again fell asleep quickly. 

All in all she's handling it better than I expected. Although she did try to replace it with her baby doll's pacifier today, so I had to take that away.

I feel like such a mean Mommy taking away something she loves so much! But I guess it's for the best.

Mediterranean Bowl

When I was on bedrest while pregnant with Madison, a lady from church made us an amazing Mediterranean dinner. It really hit the spot and I had an endless craving for it once it was gone. The other night, I decided to try to recreate something like it and I love how it turned out.

Ingredients:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 bell pepper of choice (I used half of a red and half of a yellow)
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
ground black pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups roughly chopped fresh baby spinach
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh basil (optional, but I think it adds great flavor)
crumbled feta cheese
cooked rice (1 cup uncooked)

Directions:

Mix together the oregano, basil (dried), salt, and pepper and set aside. Begin cooking chicken breasts in 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a covered skillet. My chicken was frozen, so once it started cooking I sprinkled the seasoning mix on each side of the chicken breasts. While the chicken is cooking, chop the peppers into bite-sized pieces. The chicken I used was rather thick, so once it was mostly cooked, I cut it into bite-sized pieces, and returned the chicken to the pan. Add the bell pepper and cook until chicken is cooked through and peppers are soft.

In each bowl, spoon chicken and peppers over hot rice and mix in about 1/3 cup baby spinach, 1/8 cup fresh basil, and some feta cheese (it's pretty flavorful so it doesn't take a lot to do the trick). Serves 4-6.

i love cu-capes!

There's no fooling this girl. She knows the best part of the "cu-cape" is the frosting!

Homemaking

While I was making this skirt...

Callie decided to do this...

and this...

I don't know if you can tell, but in the first picture of Callie, she's playing with marbles from one of the games she found in the hall closet (pictured above). In reference to the marbles, she kept asking me, "who's this?" (her current way of asking the name of something). After a few minutes of trying to say marbles (it sounded more like "margo") she decided to call them "mack". It was hilarious and so cute.

Later in the week, I made some freezer strawberry jam and Callie had a blast "helping" me by pulling leaves off the strawberries, rinsing them off, and cleaning the jam containers (a.k.a. playing in the water and bubbles).

You may be thinking, "wow, I'm impressed! You were so crafty last week!" But in reality I messed up the skirt in multiple ways (the partially made skirt was then shoved in a grocery bag out of frustration, and set aside) and the jam didn't really turn out...I was using a Pinterest recipe from someone's blog, but their 3 lbs of strawberries turned out to be significantly less than my 3 lbs, so it didn't set up. It was also a sugerless recipe, just using apple juice to sweeten the jam. Well, the apple juice did not sweeten my jam, so a couple days later I turned the sugarless recipe into a regular, sugerful recipe. It tastes much better now ;)

Just the Three of Us

Jason's working over 70 hours a week right now, so it's usually just the three of us--eating, shopping, playing, and napping (I've finally got both girls taking naps at the same time which means I get a nap! Woohoo!).

Before Jason was so busy with work, I usually waited until he was around to go shopping with us or stay home with a kid, but now the three of us girls do the grocery shopping without him. I now have a mental list of stores that do and do not work with both girls. For instance, I discovered that all shopping carts made for two kids do not work for car seats. I usually do grocery shopping at Walmart (bleh) to try to save some money, but the Walmart carts made for two kids are not car seat friendly; however, there's a Sam's below the Walmart (yes, you read correctly--it's below the Walmart with a huge, three-level parking garage for both stores) and the Sam's carts have a regular cart seat for two kids (like Costco's), so I can put Callie in a seat and put the car seat right next to her. I park in the middle parking garage  so I can find a Sam's cart and ride the elevator up to the Walmart.

Unfortunately, Target is on my not-baby+toddler-friendly-carts list. I can fit the car seat inside of the cart, but that doesn't leave much room for merchandise. I love Target, but maybe it's a good thing that it's no longer easy to shop there, because then I don't go spend money on random things as often.

The worst is when you go to a store that (a) does not even have carts or (b) has carts that are too small to fit both girls. My most recent findings under those categories are JoAnn's and the Dollar Tree. The employees at JoAnn's are probably still laughing at our most recent trip to their store (Picture Madison in her car seat, as cute as can be, with Callie insisting on pulling the cart down various isles while walking backwards, blocking the way for people and running into things. All the while I'm desperately trying to convince her to let me help her, and oh, by the way, I was actually there to buy a few things.)

I can't wait until we can afford to buy a double stroller! I mean, yeah, the double stroller might look goofy, but I think my current setup takes the cake for goofiness. On my morning walks, I've got Callie in our big travel system stroller and I have Maddie in a baby carrier. I frequently have one crying or something, and as I'm walking past all of these apartments filled with single working people, I get some pretty funny/annoyed/amused looks. If only they knew what they were missing out on!

Sharing

Callie "sharing" the baby toys with Madison by piling them on her and around her. In the past month or so, as I have started giving Maddie toys to play with, Callie usually gets upset and wants it for herself, so we've been working on the concept of sharing. If it's coming from Callie and not me, Callie is okay with Maddie playing with the baby toys :)

But I Love You

Callie started taking dirty dishes out of the dishwasher, putting them on the living room floor. She does this too frequently and it drives me crazy. It's a good thing I rinse and scrub most everything off of the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, because otherwise we'd have a real mess on our hands.

Anyway, so once again, for the billionth time, I told her not to take the dishes out of the dishwasher. I tried explaining to her (in my stern, your-in-trouble tone) that the dishes are dirty and need to stay in the dishwasher so they can be cleaned, and they're not for playing because some of them can break. Her response was "but I bove you" (bove=love). All sternness and frustration was replaced by laughter. I can't help it. She cracks me up.

I think she may have said that trying to predict what I was going to say next. I often follow up my stern talks with "but I love you very much..." because I'm trying to make sure I'm a kind, loving parent and I'm trying to remind myself that I shouldn't actually be mad at her, but just need to teach her right from wrong.

So now that she's disarmed me by being funny, what is she doing? You guessed it. Continuing to unload the dishwasher while I sit here and talk about how funny she is...I better go intervene.

Callie's Naptime

Today, Callie's been busy playing with just about all of her babies--feeding them in her high chair, swinging them in Maddie's swing, putting them on Maddie's play mat to play, lining them up on the couch, tucking them in her bed, and brushing their hair.

A little while ago, it was time for Callie's nap, so I gathered up all of her babies that were strewn about the house (including Teddy and Minnie Mouse, who had been included in the baby fun) and lined each side of Callie's bed with them (she insists on sleeping with all of them). She was still pretty actively engaged in her "play zone", as I call it, so I told her I'd read her some books in the rocking chair.

She brought Different Baby (previously known as Diberent Baby) and Heavy Baby to put on my lap for story time, and then she climbed up on my lap. A few seconds later she got back down and brought over more babies. This happened a couple more times, so I ended up with Pretty Baby, Orange Baby, my Cabbage Patch Doll (unnamed), Grandma's Baby, Minnie Mouse, and Teddy--the whole gang--on my lap. Oh, and her beloved blankie. By this point, as you can imagine, there was no room on my lap for Callie, so she pulled up her own chair to listen to me read. After I finished reading her usual bedtime book selection, she kept bringing me book after book to read. Needless to say, I don't think she was ready to take a nap.

She's currently laying by her door, probably in her usual way: paci in her mouth, fingers poking through her crocheted blankie, and holding Heavy Baby as she moves her feet across the door and groans her dying protests of going to sleep...

And now silence.

The past couple weeks I have felt at a loss for what to do in my current parental struggles, but thankfully, with some prayer and pondering, the Lord has provided some answers. Those answers now seem so obvious and simple--I can't believe I didn't realize them sooner--but I guess it's a good thing I figured it out now, with my first child.

The first was that I needed to be more attentive to Callie and the signals she naturally sends me. For example, she sort of goes through a cycle during the day. At times she'll get in her little zone and happily play by herself. Other times, she'll come to me wanting attention. I usually try to engage her in some other activity so that I can continue what I'm doing, but it usually results in her whining, crying, and getting into trouble. I've decided I need to take the time to give her the attention she's seeking during those times.

The other solution was to really get her on a schedule. I have heard time and time again the importance of schedules for children and how it really helps them feel comfortable and happy when they know what to expect, but I haven't felt like Callie could/would slip into a set schedule. I have just always gone with the flow, feeding her when she felt like eating and putting her down for naps when she started getting grouchy, but sometimes the timing of her naps and eating don't compliment each other. On a day when she wants to take a nap earlier than she eats lunch, she almost always wakes up miserable and inconsolable. So hopefully getting her on a schedule will solve some issues.

I feel so relieved to have some solutions to try and I hope they make a huge difference.

New Life Phase

I have restarted this post 3 times now. I just have a hard time finding the right words to express myself. I think I'll resort to a list. I love lists. I live by lists. So here it is:

What I'm enjoying about my new life--the grass is greener on this other side...

-We are actually making enough money to live on and save, so we no longer have to live off of our savings account.
-Our whole family is now insured under one company. (Before moving here, I was dealing with three insurance companies. As for myself, I had a primary insurance and Medicaid as a secondary insurance. Having a baby under two insurance plans is so complicated...and frustrating...I was very grateful for Medicaid, but I did have to spend a lot of time on the phone sorting things out).
-I now have all the time in the world to do all of those things I've been wanting time to do, such as: sewing projects, improving my cooking skills, practicing viola and piano, working on some home decorating projects, figuring out what to do with those unpacked boxes, getting myself in the best shape of my life, etc. I have two adorable kids who take up most of my time, but I have the freedom to organize my time so that I can do little bits of some things I've been wanting to do : )
-We're closer to our dream of buying a house! Hopefully we have just a couple of years until that happens, but it seems so much closer now that we're here and can actually start saving the money for it. (I'll admit, I've been looking at houses on Zillow today...You know me, always looking ahead.)
-I'm really starting to enjoy our new ward. I was worried I wouldn't like it because it's basically like the BYU married ward I've avoided, i.e., very young married couples with very young children who are constantly moving in and out of the ward. However, I have already made a couple of friends, which is usually difficult for me and takes a long time.

What I'm struggling with in my new life--this grass is sure green, but there are some yellow spots...

-I feel like I'm still adjusting to having a toddler and baby. I'm not sure why it's taking so long. Maybe it won't get any easier and I just have to stretch my abilities and capacity as a mother. Maybe I'm struggling because I had my Mom coming down almost every week in Utah and my husband was just upstairs when I needed help.
-Callie has not been herself. She's difficult, belligerent, quick to scream/whine/cry, now gets jealous of the attention I give to Madison, and she isn't sleeping as much or as well. (Just today, Callie was in one of these awful moods. Jason was at whit's end and had sent her to her room. I told him this is how she's been lately. He said, "How do you deal with that every day?" I've been praying for patience and kindness because I don't think I deal with it very well.)
-While we were well prepared for how this job would be during the busy season, the struggles I just mentioned have made it really difficult also having Jason gone 65+ hours a week (including Saturdays). Around 4 or 5 everyday, I'm exhausted and about ready pull my hair out, and I don't have the relief of Jason coming home to ease my load. I just have to keep going and going until bedtime. I have to remind myself that busy season will end in a couple of months and then I'll have Jason back.

See, it was much easier for me to say all of that in a list.