Another Picture Post

This is an easier way for me to blog. Just upload my pics from my phone every couple of months. Here's a little update on the girls first.
Charlotte-
- TERRIBLE TWO'S! 'nuff said
- attempting potty training, she goes every night before baths, working on it more throughout the day
- in 4T clothes because she's so tall, but they are HUGE on her tiny waist :)
- still naps, but fights them almost daily
- favorite shows are Curious George, Backyardagin's, Super Why, and Blue's Clues
- favorite song is "I Am A Child of God". She knows every word :)
- favorite colors are green and purple. Purple clothes, green for anything else
- loves coloring and painting. She'll do it forever!
- knows all her numbers up to 24
- knows and recognizes all the uppercase and lowercase letters
- knows her basic shapes and most colors
- can write the letters "T, C,O, L, E, I" and occasionally "A"
- loves to have her picture taken and cheeses it up for every picture. I always ask her to just smile normal, but then she frowns :( silly girl
- her other favorite song is "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5.... she knows too many of the words.
- anywhere we go she says HI to every. single. person..... It's cute, but some people don't respond and she repeats it OVER and OVER and sometimes that's embarrassing for me, lol :)
- she really is a sweet girl and loves time alone with mom and dad. we love her guts

Leah
- 9 months old next week and almost 22lbs!
- aka "Leah- peah"... we said it as a nickname in the beginning and now Char thinks that's her real name
- is semi-anti-nursing as of the past week... mom is sad :(
- doesn't fit into any of Char's old clothes. She's in 12m clothes and Char was only in 9m ones at this time
- army crawls and rolls all over the place, also sits. Her head is just so big and her body is super roly poly, so she hasn't done much more than that. She gets up on her hands and knees all the time and rocks, but won't crawl. Silly girl.
- babbles "da-da, ma-ma, na-na" and "no no". "No no" is always followed with a big head shake :)
- eating lots of baby food, but has a hard time with texture. Just barely eating some pastas and quick-dissolving crackers.
- loves her jumper. Sometimes she jumps like it'll launch her upstairs!
- LOVES Charlotte. She gets so so excited anytime Char is by her.
- hates socks. As soon as their on her feet she pulls them off with her teeth then carries them around like a little puppy. It cracks me up.
- when we giver her kisses, she puts her hand around our necks and hugs us back. pretty much adorable.

OK- that's about it! George and I are doing great. Nothing new going on, but we're doing well. Next interview panel for George is March. He put in for Nevada and Tennessee this time, so cross your fingers for us!

PICS.... sorry, it's a LOT.

Day after Christmas. Made gingerbread houses.

Such a cheeseball!

Thanks for the tent Grandma and Grandpa Jex!

LOL!

She really wanted to go swimming..... in 30 degree weather.

Mini- Rebecca and mini-George!

Bath time!

Felt Mr. Potato Head

Painting

 :)

Hard at work.... coloring.

 "H, I, L" and a backwards "J"

George asked her what it was. "It's a biiiiiiiiiiig girl." Then she asked him to draw the face, hands and hair.

At the zoo

Daddy and Leah

Pasta necklace

Cute ponytails!

Happy Birthday to ME! 25! Had an awesome time with my girlfriends at The Cheesecake Factory!

He got in trouble.

"It's dad. With his glasses."

New hair again... bangs. Thoughts?

Charlotte and her twin boyfriends.

Char and her cousin, Gracie.

My awesome brother, Steven, got his mission call to Berlin, Germany!

Steak anyone?

Drawing shapes

I mustache you a question, but I'm shaving it for later.

BIG DEAL-- The WHOLE family went out to eat at a sit-down restaurant and the girls were ANGLES! Pics to document....

Smile everyone :)

Picture Post

George and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on November 24th. It was George's year to plan, so we went and played Laser Tag (SO fun!!) and went out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory (my favorite place!). It was a much needed date away. We had a blast!

George placed number 7 out of 34 at Laser Tag.... never mind that more than half of them were under 12. LOL :)

Charlotte pushing Leah around in the laundry basket.

Beautiful fall here in Tulsa. Sorry some of them are blurry!

My beautiful Leah. 7 months old now!

Charlotte got to have a picnic lunch while watching her favorite show. She was a pretty happy girl!

These two crack me up. Sorry it's so blurry. After baths, they lay on the floor and just crack each other up while I get them dressed. It's so cute! I love that they love each other right now. I hope it stays that way!

Autumn day at the park with the girls.

Leah's face is like this a lot. It's pretty funny.

Whatever, mom.

HAHA! Charlotte doesn't like napping with pants on (weird) so after naps she put on her dress up shoes and was walking around like this. Made. My. Day!

Cute new coat!

I make bread. Once a week. It's become quite the hobby. I really love making it and the recipe I got from a friend is the BEST white bread EVER!

I saw this idea on Pinterest. It actually occupied her for almost an hour!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ignore the fact that our turkey is NOT done... BUT I made the whole dinner by myself. It was fun!

Another project. I made this little apron for Char. She loves it.

Also saw this on Pinterest. It clears up so much counter space. And brings a good pop of color into the room.

Oh hey.... I'm blonde again.

Snowflakes. Might have consumed me for a whole day.

Happy little Leah. She's lovin' solid foods now!

Charlotte's hair IS growing.... slowly.

Our REAL Christmas tree!

Charlotte learned how to sign "I love you". She had also just taken out her ponytails... hence the awesome hairdo.

Leah has longer hair than Charlotte.... and jowls....

..... unless she's cheesing it up!

Charlotte was pretty sick with an ear and eye infection. I don't know why I took this picture. But she was so sickly looking. Poor girl. She's much better now that she's on antibiotics!

This girl, cracks me up.

Leah's ponytail!

Leah rolling over- excuse the annoying Mommy voice :)

Charlotte's bedtime singing routine. Every. Single. Night. Same songs. It's a little quiet at the beginning. 

Dear Leah,

Oh, Little Leah, I love you so much. You are such a light in our house. You already have such a big, bright smile that brings so much joy to your family. You are so patient when Mom has to take care of other things and you're so hungry. I love it when I'm feeding you and you stare up at me and as soon as I smile at you, you pull away and grin so big at me. It melts my heart. You are learning how to sit up and you're just weeks away from laughing out loud. You are such a good girl and sleep more than 12 hours every night and take good naps during the day. I think my favorite thing you do right now is when you wake up and we come in to get you, as soon as you see our faces, you smile SO big and kind of cackle like you're about to laugh. It's adorable. You love the bath so much and kick and splash like crazy when you're in the water!
You are so chubby and I love to kiss your big cheeks. You are almost in 6-9 month clothes and you're only 3 months old! You are a good eater and hardly ever spit up. I'm so glad you're healthy.
 I love your Daddy so much and you have his eyes. When I miss him so much during the day, I can look at you and I feel like I'm looking right at him. You make me so happy and I'm so grateful you chose to come to our family.

I love you, Leah-Peah

Love, Momma

Dear Charlotte,

Charlotte, you are such a good little girl. Right now you are 2 years old and want everyone to know that! We've had a rough couple months together, but I know it's because you just want Mom to pay attention to you. I hope you know how much I love you.
 You are such a sweet big sister to Leah. She smiles so big when you talk to her. You are so good at giving her hugs and kisses all the time. I know she loves you so much. You are such a nurturing little girl. I love watching you play with your dolls and stuffed animals. You hold them so gently and love to give them hugs and kisses too.
You are such a smart girl. You're talking so well and remember things that really surprise me. You are so independent and want to do everything yourself. I am so proud of the things you are learning to do and your desire to do it yourself even if it takes all day. After practicing so much, you can now get dressed by yourself in less than 3 minutes! AND, your hair is long enough to put in a little pony now! Thank you for letting me put pretties in your hair. You are so beautiful, did you know that?
You are teaching me so much more than I think I am teaching you. I am such an impatient person and you are teaching me everyday to be more patient and enjoy the minutes. I can't believe how fast you are growing up. I can't wait to see the kind of strong willed woman you will become.
I love you, Char. You will always be my sweet baby girl.

Love, Mom

These sweet girls

 Charlotte was attached at the hip with Grandma ("Beebah") while she was here. Here's some sweet pictures from while my mom was here. We had a great time together. I loved having her here to ask every question about everything. I've missed her so much, it was a much needed visit. We didn't really do a whole lot since Leah was still too little to really take anywhere. We had a picnic lunch at the park, went out to eat, took a drive around town, and watched TV. Looking back, I was still recovering a lot more than I wanted to be. I wanted to go out and do a bunch of things and play games and stuff, but I was emotionally and physically TIRED. I'm hoping she had as good of a time as I did :)

Helping with bath time.

Pink dinner. Girls only!

Sweet Grandma :)

In my last post I was SERIOUSLY concerned that Charlotte hated me and the sweet relationship we had was shot now that little Leah was in the picture. Luckily, now that we've settled into a schedule again and I'm back to being the real mom, everything is all good. She still likes me :) And she loves her "bebe seeser". It's pretty cute. I love having two sweet girls to dress up everyday. It's also a blast to have all 3 of us matching. But that doesn't happen all too often yet.

Purple girls!

Cookie pizza day!

Sharing with her sister.

We'll be blessing Leah in our ward in 3 weeks, on July 3rd. We're super excited to have George's brother, Dean, coming to stand in the circle. It really means a lot to George to have at least SOME family here and in the circle with him. I'm excited to have visitors again! We'd love to have anyone else come if they want! We don't have a ton of room in our micro apartment, but there's a lot of good hotels right down the street.

Here's some things about Leah at 3 weeks old:
- Just like Charlotte, she sleeps a ton. She's waking up about every 3-5 hours to eat, then falls right back to sleep.
- I'm nursing, but apparently make good cream because she's already over 9lbs!
- Her eyes look just like George's to me. In fact, I think she looks more like him than Charlotte ever has.
- She grunts all the time. It's hysterical!
- She has a blow out diaper about every day. It's getting old.
- Her umbilical cord stump never fell off. It was hanging by a nasty thread on day 21.... so I cut it off. George was seriously concerned that I had opened up a portal into her abdomen because I didn't let it fall off naturally.
- She can't tolerate caffeine.... no Diet Coke for me :(

I'm so grateful to have little Leah in our family. We all love her to pieces.

Cute blue day.

You can guess what's going on in this picture. bwahaha!

So wide awake!!

The Story- Part 2

Well, after I got my sleeping pill and could relax a little more, my contractions decided to come even harder and closer together.... just as I got to sleep. I'm so glad though. It really meant so much to me that I didn't have to be induced. I suffered through the contractions and finally called the nurse to see if there was anything they could give me that wasn't an epidural. She gave me a shot of something that took the edge off, but I could still feel each on hard and strong. It was not fun. She checked me and I was in active labor, at a 6!! I got through a handful of contractions and thought I was seriously going to die! I asked for another shot and by the time she got back to give it to me, I asked for the epidural. She called the anesthesiologist and she came right away. Within 20 minutes, I had the epidural in and she got ready to turn on the medicine, but wanted to check me first. I had progressed from a 6 to a 9 in about 30 minutes! OUCH! They started the medicine and within an hour I was pushing. 5 pushes later, sweet Leah was born. I wish I could tell you how amazing that moment was... unfortunately, the sleeping pill, shot and epidural made my body sort of freak out. I was shaking so badly, I could hardly hold her. I gave her a quick kiss and then handed her off. I don't remember George's face or really anything more after that. I have no clue how I moved from the delivery room to the recovery room. She was born at 3:37am and the last time I remember was 6:30 that morning. NO clue were those 3 hours went. It breaks my heart. George says not to be sad because he remembers everything and said I was normal and didn't act crazy or anything, I was just physically out of it. He said the moment was just a precious for him as it was with Charlotte. He said the second he saw her he didn't care if she came out perfect or missing limbs or whatever, he loved her so much. That was another one of OUR daughters. 

Over the past 3 days I have bonded so well with Leah. I love her so much and am so grateful to have her in our family. Charlotte loves her too... which is good.

George was able to take a week off of work to help out around the house and to take care of Charlotte. We're honestly getting a little bored, since I'm feeling great and Leah's doing well too. So if anyone has some ideas of things we can do in the house or little projects Charlotte could do with us, ideas are most definitely welcome. I'm sooooo excited... my Mom is coming next week for a couple days. I can't believe it's been almost a year and a half since we've seen her. Charlotte was 8 months old when we left. She's a totally different girl now! It's going to be so fun to have her here and to show her Tulsa. I have really come to love it here, so I'm excited to show her around. 

On another note.... Charlotte hates me. Seriously, she wants NOTHING to do with me. Only Daddy can help her with anything. Getting her dressed, bath, putting on shoes, reading.... everything! I've tried so hard to include her and do things with her, but she just yells at me and says, "NO! Dad!!"..... It's breaking my heart. I really hope it's just a phase. If not, advice PLEASE!

The Story- Part 1

Well, before this sweet baby is born, I guess I'll start documenting her birth story. I've basically been in "early labor" since last Tuesday (May 10th). Almost every night my body has contractions for 2-4 hours that range from 3-6 minutes apart. It's hard and frustrating. As soon as I think, "OK, this is real. Let's call the Dr. Or, Let's go to the hospital." they stop... BAH! Last Tuesday, I got really shaky and was throwing up a lot so I thought it was the real thing. We went to the hospital (at midnight!) and on the drive there, the contractions eased up. After being there for almost an hour, I was still only at a 1, so they sent us home. I was an emotional wreck. For the next week, I would experience the same thing almost everyday. RUDE. Wednesday (the 11th, Charlotte's birthday) Charlotte woke up early, throwing up. We had to cancel her MUCH anticipated garden birthday party. I was crushed. I had an appointment that afternoon and was dilated to a 3! (2cm overnight? YAY!) Unfortunately, my blood pressure was high, so my awesome Dr ordered a bunch of lab work to make sure it wasn't pre eclampsia, and had me come back in on Friday to get my membranes stripped (ow!) and make sure my BP was down (it was!). Monday morning, she called me with my lab results, I have pre eclampsia. Lame! The only way to get rid of it is to deliver the baby, so I was scheduled to be induced on Wednesday, May 18th, bright and early at 5:30am. Tuesday, the 17th at 5am, my contractions started up again and have yet to die down. They've stayed around 6-7 minutes apart, sometimes as close as 3 minutes apart... but nothing consistent. Kind of annoying. Because of the pre eclampsia, my Dr made me come into the hospital to be monitored until tomorrow morning, when I'll get induced. That is, unless things pick up and she comes on her own. In about half an hour, they're giving me a sleeping pill and some tylenol in hopes that I just zonk out until morning.
My plan this whole pregnancy has been to do this all naturally. Meaning NO epidural. No induction. Nothing... (OK, except a sleeping pill, hehe). I was mildly devastated when I found out I had to be induced. I have prepared myself to get through this with different relaxation and breathing techniques. I know I can do it without pitocin, but I'm scared to death for how it'll be once that's pumping through my veins. I'm going to try and go as far as I can. I'll post part 2 tomorrow!

Why, thank you.

This post could potentially sound unkind. It's not. It is just me venting upon the fact that there are unkind people in the world that think they can say whatever they want, because of age/gender/social status.
As you all know, I'm pregnant. Almost 37 weeks pregnant. That is still 3 WHOLE WEEKS away from full term. I know I'm huge. I know I look uncomfortable. But yes, I am still pregnant. If I have another person ask me, "You're STILL hangin' in there, huh?!" or say, as if it's nothing, "You're just so BIG!", I think I might say something unkind back. My question is, why do people think that JUST because I'm pregnant and NOT overweight or something, that they can make said comments? I didn't understand it last pregnancy, and I don't get it now. It's not OK.
I AM miserable. I am so uncomfortable. And I seriously feel like a beached whale more than 90% of my days. Believe me people, no one wants to see me UN-pregnant more than ME. But I still have 3 more weeks! So be nice. Please. Otherwise, I might cry. And that's just not pretty.

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