Moses is 20 months!!

Hands down the cutest month so far!  I loooove this age of Moses' soooo much.  He is giggly and happy and just a joy to be around.  Oh Moses I love you my snuggle bunny.  He does the cutest things like run around happy naked and hug me and kiss me and laugh and smile and play.  He is truly truly an angel.  I love 20 months Moses and all of Moses all the time too.  Here are a few more updates:

• Still not talking a ton but he understands everything and points to it and says "ah!"  So endearing.
• Gives me a silent kiss when I say "beso?"
• Says no when he means yes but says no in such a cute little tone of voice
• Loves to run to you and hug you
• Says "mama" and "dada" so lovingly
• Likes to sit with me and read books
• Adores Lizzie and does whatever she wants
• Tries to drink water from a cup
• Has a big belly still 
• Happy, happy man

Even just talking about him now makes me want to go down and snuggle him.  Moses I love you and will forever.

Grace is 6 months!!

Oh my look at our cutie pie!  She is growing so fast and is so wonderful.  I love you Grace.  She is huge and is really developing this month.  Here is what's new with her:

• She can sit up unsupported for a few minutes.  I just always keep the boppy behind her just in case.  She loves sitting up and can play for a long time without getting fussy.  Much more so than if she is on tummy time or back time.
• She no longer wakes up at 5:30 so that we have to binky her for another stretch of sleep.  She now sleeps from 7-7.  
• She is always, always happy to see us when we come and get her.  Just so happy and wiggly.
• She takes amazing naps these days!!  Thank you Gracie.  From 8:30-11 and from 1-4.  Wow!  
• Hard to believe but I actually have it on video.  I've witnessed her scooting/crawling backwards.  Wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it.  She pushed back and her bum went up in the air.  Too cute.
• She is happy even when sick.  The doc told us she had a bad ear infection and I wouldn't even had known.
• She does have a touch of RSV and an ear infection as  I just mentioned.  She got it from poor Moses who's really been suffering from it.  Hopefully the breastmilk will curb the worst of it.  
• She laughs and loves it when I dance around the room with her and bounce her.  
• She is sooo sweet and happy and I love her so much!  

Thank you Grace for coming into our lives and making us so happy.  

Moses is 19 months!

Wow I don't know how to express how dear Moses is to my heart.  My mom said it to me today "he is just so special."  He is such a sweet cuddler.  Here's what's new with my baby boy:

• He adores Lizzie and does whatever she does especially when she dances and spins
• He loves a good dance beat and enjoys dancing and spinning
• He has decided to stop talking for a while and mostly just points at stuff and says "eh!" until we get it
• He loves to laugh when others are laughing
• He loves the sandbox
• He loves the traincars
• He is still a cuddler
• He likes things to be explained to him
• He does wave bye bye very well

Can't think of more right now but man do I ever love my baby Mo.  

Grace is 5 months old!

Oh man she is the cutest little muffin cup!  I love Grace sooo much!  I love holding her and nursing her and watching her little leg kick up and holding her hand in mine as she nurses.  Gosh I love everything about her.  She has the softest hair and she is such a smiley baby.  Here's some more new on her:

• She is starting to kinda "talk" when she wakes up instead of cry.  I remember Moses did this around the same time.  I love it.  
• She is getting better at tummy time.  If I put something out of her reach, she will grasp at it until she can get it.
• She is discovering her toes and is loving pulling everything in her baby gym. 
• She is starting to roll from back to front.  Pretty cool.
• She is happy as ever.
• She is staying up longer in the morning.  That's pretty cool. 

Well I think that's it.  This mama is sooo tired.  G'night!

Happy Halloween!!

Aaah Halloween!  We just finished that season and it was nice.  So nice to "grow" with your kids and see them appreciate different holidays through your eyes.  I love it all.  The only thing that bugs me is that it seems like so much of what we celebrate is tied to food and not good food at all.  Really bad food or, as I am learning in my paleo studies, "edible food substances."  Isn't that what it is really?  Just thinking about that lately has me in wonder and awe.  I look at a bowl of candy and think.  Nah.  Even a Twix has lost its joy for me.  It's so annoying though, isn't it.  From Halloween through Valentine's Day (and maybe coasting into Easter) it's all about the food and candy.  I'm really waffling these days on how much of it to do or participate in it foodwise.  There is something so lovely and snuggly about making cookies or bread or putting ones heart into a fabulous meal that might (gasp!) include some grains.  Still trying to make sense of it all.  My head says Paleo is the way to go but my heart sometimes yearns for the comforting traditions that go along with "regular" food.

Anyway, I haven't even touched Halloween though, have I?  I'm feeling sick-ish these days.  That kind of sick where if I push myself just once too often, it's gonna really make me sick and yet I am always pushing myself.  So tired ya'll.  So Halloween was nice.  We went to a coupled of parties and I dressed up Lizzie as Lil Bo Peep and Grace and Moses were her little sheep.  It was adorable!  Wanna see?? M'kay.

Oh yeah she was also a cat sometimes cause it's a lot easier to wear cat ears than a hoop skirt

My lil lambie.  Man do I love her.  Oh yeah I was a mouse.  Easiest costume ever.

Mowie not thrilled about that. Haha!

Library time with Miss Sally.

 For Halloween itself we were rebels and didn't go to our local Trunk or Treat but decided to do the real thing and went down to Holladay and did the full trick or treat thing with Martha's family.  That was nice.  Afterward, we hung out.  Lizzie played, Moses wandered and Greta and Paul really got into the candy trading and bartering.  We also did a bunch of Just Dance Wiii stuff.  That was so fun.  I don't like video games but I wouldn't mind having this in our home cause everyone loves it and gets into it.  Paul and I even did that silly song from Dirty Dancing.  Paul was such a gem.  He loved getting into it with me. 

Notes to my future self on babies and sleep training, number 2

So when Moses was about 4 months old, I remember writing myself some notes on this blog on what to do because man do you forget so quickly how to do baby stuff.  Forget or block it from memory?? Who knows but anyway, I am finally out of the thick of things I think, especially as far as baby sleep training is concerned.  And here are some words of wisdom to future Nelda with baby #4:

• Use the baby monitor sparingly.  I wish I had known that more with the other kids.  I actually am to the point where I leave Grace's door open at night so that I won't hear her every sound and assume she is awake and mistakenly try to jump in and not let her soothe herself independently.  Losing the monitor is the biggest thing I have learned from this baby.  
• Still read the baby whisperer and the baby sleep solution.  These books are amazing.
• Dreamfeed, dreamfeed, dreamfeed.  I would be lost without you!
• Ok I have finally figured out breastfeeding and I'll tell ya what, it's a labor of love.  But it just killed me to see poor Moses have such a constipation problem once I stopped nursing him at 5 months because I lost my milk.  Breastfeeding is such a science and so complicated.  It's been hard to keep up my milk but I finally got a nugget of wisdom from the lactation consultant.  It's called power pumping and what you do is for 3 nights for an hour you pump on and off for 10 mins.  It has saved me twice now when I was about to lose my milk.  Nursing has been such an emotionally charged issue for me that I just take it day by day.  I must admit I finally get the whole "I love nursing my baby it's so special and tender" thing.  But I still have to work at keeping up my milk with this growing baby of mine.  My faint goal is to do it to 6 months.  If I can last longer, I will try.  Like I said, a labor of love.  I pump 5 times a day to keep up.  What really got me going the other day was that I read that almost all baby formula (except some really expensive stuff) has high fructose corn syrup in it!!  Can you believe it??  No wonder kids become obese and develop a sweet tooth so soon.  That is seriously wrong.  
• Here is a nugget of wisdom I read a few weeks ago from some doctor on baby and sleep training:  "We have got it all wrong and backwards with baby raising.  We let them develop bad habits and then we try to break them and it results in a lot of stress and crying.  We need to coax them into great habits from day one and then it'll be a lot easier to let them continue in that stream.  We'll never have to train them out of bad habits."  Anyway, I am paraphasing but do you see what I mean?  I did this with Grace more than my other two.  From day one, practically, I put her to bed with her eyes open but slightly drowsy and it clicked.  Also, VERY IMPORTANT, I let her work it out more than the others when she would fuss.  The reason is, I was too busy with my other kids to have time to soothe her.  This worked well.
• I do think I begun sleep training a little too early with Grace - 6 weeks.  With the next one, I will go back to 8 weeks.  I think this resulted in a bit of a stressful sleep regression later on, which is now corrected, thank goodness.
• Every baby is so different.  Grace is an angel but just her ways are a bit different than the other ones and etc.  It's fun though.  Well, good luck, my dear future Nelda.  I know it's an awful. sleepless time you are having but I promise you it'll get better.  Just kiss and snuggle that cutiepants so, so tight.  They come straight from heaven. 

My Meet the Mormons movie review

So I went with my parents to see Meet the Mormons about a week ago.  Good stuff!  The documentary showcased six different Mormons.  They were all wonderful and I am still thinking about them.  Wonderful isn't the word.  It's more like impressionable.  The only one who seemed a little lacking in background and dimension was this incredible LDS convert from Nepal.  He seemed fascinating and inspirational.  I want to personally meet him.  I want to be like him.  He is brilliant (an engineer) and converted in Russia of all places.  He spoke most to me for someone I'd like to be more like.  Oh, bye the way, the NY Times review said that it was rated PG for potential proselytizing.  So funny that something can become PG because of that!

I just loved the mom and kickboxer from Costa Rica.  She and her husband have a cool cross-fit-y gym in Costa Rica.  Man is she ever driven and determined and she and her hubby really have it together as a team plus she seems like a fun and loving mom.  It made me want to start some kind of company on the side with Paul.  Lastly, the mom who used to be homeless and now lives in Utah was so interesting and heartwarming to me because she endured so much but then at the end she was okay.  She got baptized and married a great guy and her son was going on a mission.  So so happy for her.

Well, there's my review.  Everyone should see it.  Great job Mormon Church!

In the thick of it

Whew!  Man life is cray cray!  Just wanted to report on it all.  But I love it.  But it sure is crazy.  I am just in the middle of being a complete mom.  A bottleneck if you will.  Can't even express how much I LOVE it.  I love Moses' little bear paw hands and Lizzie's self-imposed delayed gratification habits I have recently notice and Grace's little head bobbing.  Man we have some cute babies.  Oh and yeah Paul is still unemployed so I am pretty stressed about that but hey I am living life, yesiree and I LOVE it!  Thank you Heavenly Father for my life!!

Moses is 18 months old!!

So yeah my baby boy of the cute little fat rolls and pudgy, wudginess is 18 months.  I am so proud of him and I love Moses soooo much!

• Says Mama, Dada, hat, car, ball and pretty much anything I tell him to say
• Points to body parts
• Loves to do whatever Lizzie does
• Is such a great cuddler
• Is really starting to get into trains and cars
• Folds his arms when we pray.  The CUTEST thing I have ever seen.
• 27 pounds and 33 inches long (85% and 68% percentile)
• Giggles a lot and loves when I chase him
• Did such a great job at nursery this Sunday.  First time ever and was off playing in a jiffy and didn't even meltdown even without a nap.

Oh Mowie, I love you so much!

Just some random kiddie pics

 Lizzie and Moses are getting to be such great friends.  I am so grateful for that.