Babe and Kabe's Wedding

Because Jessie is the baby, she gets called "Babe" more often than not. So when Kaleb entered the scene last year, it only seemed natural to refer to them as "Babe and Kabe." And so, Bryan's baby sister got married on the 14th. I was a bridesmaid, Bryan was a groomsman, and Chloë was the flower girl.

Getting ready before rushing out the door for the busy day.


It was a beautiful day, and the pictures were taken at the U of I Admin Building, where Bryan and I got married and had our pictures taken 5 1/2 years ago.

I was so glad Bryan had his handy dandy iPhone and got some good pictures. I didn't bother bringing my camera.














After the pictures were taken, I changed Chloë into normal clothes, and she fell asleep in the car during our 12 minute drive to Living Faith Fellowship, where the ceremony took place. We had a little lunch, and then touched up our hair and makeup in a Sunday School room. I got both of the girls re-dressed and in clean diapers, and 20 minutes before the ceremony was due to start, I picked up Elaina to nurse her one last time before passing her off to my mom for a few hours.

I felt a splash of something hit my foot.

My arms extended to hold Elaina away from my body. I looked down and saw neon orange baby poo all over my foot. Nooo. This can't be happening.

I must have made some sort of squawking distress call, because within two seconds, Laura was at my attention and asking what she could do. She grabbed a baby blanket, and I set Elaina down, hoping there wasn't orange poo all over everyone.

I only had a little drip of the stuff near the hem of my dress, and it wiped right off. My foot probably should have been disinfected, but we didn't have time. After I got myself all cleaned up, I turned to Elaina, who was happily cooing and rolling around on the blanket we had set her on.

There was only a smudge of orange stuff on the lining of Elaina's pretty silver dress. It wiped right off. As I was changing her diaper, I could not understand how on earth the semi-liquid poo had escaped her diaper in such a tidy manner. When the diaper fails to do its job of containment, stuff always get everywhere. But not this time. 95% of the mess landed neatly on my foot. I was so grateful that I hadn't been passing her off to Jessie the moment that transpired.

God is so gracious, even in the little silly things.

By the time everything was taken care of, the candle lighters were on stage. Barefoot, with heels in hand, I dashed out of the classroom to catch up with the other bridesmaids. I had to run back for my bouquet, and was practically hopping down the hallway trying to buckle my shoes. I had about 30 seconds to compose myself before it was my turn to walk down the aisle.

And then Jessie and Kaleb got married.




It was beautiful and wonderful, and we are all so very happy. Jessie and Kaleb are both exceptional individuals, and we are so excited that God saw fit to give them to each other.

Bedtime

Eyes

A couple of weeks ago, all of my favorite people were together on the couch on a lazy Saturday morning.

Mothers Day

I'm a little bit sad that I didn't get any pictures of me and my mom and my girls all together. Oh well. We had wonderful day. My family was here, and it was the nicest day we've had so far this year. My mom and I decided margaritas sounded good, so Bryan blended us up some tasty ones, and we sat out on the porch in the warm sunshine and enjoyed ourselves. We said it was almost as good as being on a cruise.

Everyone else slowly trickled out onto the porch, and I decided we needed to add the kiddie pool to the equation. So we did.

23 Months

Recently I've been having a hard time grasping the fact that my first baby is almost a 2-year-old. But sure enough, she's growing up. Every day holds something new. She says something new. Does something new. Learns something new.


"Patty cake, patty cake bakers man. Roll it. Pat it. C! Oven for Chloë!"

She sings constantly. (I can't imagine where she gets it.) Unless we ask her to, and then she gets all cute and embarrassed and won't do it. She's always singing or humming some cute little song, usually something she made up.

A couple of weeks ago, we were home, just going about our evening, when she suddenly stopped what she was doing. She started making a face. That face. On a whim, I asked her if she wanted to make poo poos in the toilet. She got really excited about the suggestion, and was the happiest little girl in the whole world that night. We really aren't ready to potty train her quite yet. We have a trip in a few weeks that includes new places and airplanes, and I'd rather not complicate things by having a toddler who is partially potty trained. But it's good to know that when we are ready to potty train, she won't be afraid of the toilet.

Here's one of her great faces. It's her attempt at the "I'm Chubby" face.

And this is her space face.

And then this face was just today. Mimi had the camera and said "smile!" and this is what we got:


Last week I went to the mall with the girls. We met up with Betsy and her kids, and we all splurged at Starbucks Happy Hour. Frappuccinos were 1/2 price, so I figured I'd introduce Chloë to the wonderful world of frozen coffee beverage. Of course I ordered hers without the actual coffee, so it was basically a chocolate smoothie. She eagerly consumed half of it, and then gradually sipped on it as it melted into liquid. At one point I looked down to see some of the beverage was on her hands. And then I saw that her cup was empty. Oh no. She had dumped the last half of her beverage on to her lap, and was happily sitting in a 2 inch puddle of melted frappuccino. She made quite a mess, and didn't seem at all phased by being covered in frappuccino.

Our church had their annual Easter Fest a couple of weeks ago, and Chloë was old enough to enjoy all of the fun; face painting and dancing, among other things.




It was so much fun watching her watch the dancing. We kept asking her if she was ready to come home (since it was nearing bedtime), but she kept insisting on staying to watch more. I think we might have to put her in ballet lessons in a couple more years.

She's always been curious about what goes on when I'm nursing Elaina. I guess she finally figured it all out and decided her bunny sock monkey was hungry.


Now that it's May, we've finally had some nice warm days, and Chloë is thrilled that she gets to spend so much time outside. Today she got completely drenched while I was watering our just-sprouted grass. She kept running in front of the spray of water, giggling and shrieking with joy.

A couple of days ago, helping Papa with a project.


Playing with Louella, who now lives much closer than Seattle for the summer. Hurray!

She would play outside all day long if I let her. Even though our back yard is totally fenced, I'm really not quite comfortable just letting her run around without supervision back there. Soon though.

Since we've been outside so much lately, there have been lots of little bumps and bruises and scrapes. She's funny about scrapes. She doesn't like band-aids, but she's quite distraught at the sight of her "wound," as we've come to call them. Of course she usually has one knee or the other scraped up, and as long as she doesn't see it, she usually forgets about it. But if she notices it, she can get quite upset about it. The thing that helps the most is to tell her to be "tough like Samuel." And she nods and agrees and usually cheers right up.

She is quite the emotional child. Happy and cheerful most of the time. But fussy and whiny at other times, especially if her nap wasn't long enough. Last week, I randomly made up a little song when we were putting her to bed. She calls it "go sleep Chloë." It's a simple little tune that has now become part of our naptime and bedtime routines. "It's time to go to sleep, now Chloë. It's time to close your eyes, and sleep. Mama loves you very much. Daddy loves you very much. Jesus loves you very much. And now it's time to sleep. It's time to go to sleep, now Chloë. It's time to close your eyes, and sleep."

She seems to love all living things. Since we've been outside a lot lately, she's become quite familiar with various bugs and critters, and loves seeing squirrels and neighbor's cats out and about. We stopped to see the grizzly bears over in Pullman, and she thought that was pretty great.


She's such a sweet spirited girl, and so good with her little sister.

I Love My Girls

I love spending time with them; playing, laughing, running, talking, reading, singing. And so I try to avoid spending too much time on this silly computer; shopping, price comparing, planning, buying, reading, networking, and blogging. I always have at least five firefox tabs open, usually including email, facebook, a new recipe to try, and maybe an inspiring blog post someone wrote about how simple in can be to be a good mom: Spend time with your kids. Play with them. Love them. Hug them. Read to them. Let them help you with the laundry, dishes, baking and sweeping, even though it takes twice as long.

I know this. I love to do this.

But it is easy to get on the computer "just for five minutes" and suddenly I'm starting a blog post, comparing prices on diapers, planning a party for next week, browsing craigslist, looking for a rental car for our trip next month, and checking email and facebook.

I don't want to give up on this blog entirely, but it's certainly not my top priority. Blogging about how wonderful my life is means nothing if I don't live it.

So here I am, getting off the computer, so we can all go outside and play and water the new grass that we planted on Saturday. I'll carry Elaina in the Bjorn, and Chloë will run around, getting wet and muddy.

This is why my life is wonderful.

Three Months Old

Blogspot recently revamped their website, and I'm having a miserable time figuring out how to adjust the layout of my posts.  If things look sloppy and weird, I do apologize. 

My baby girl is three months old.  How quickly these last three months have gone.  Elaina is a sweet, happy, chubby baby.  She is content to sit in her bouncy chair for a good portion of the day, while I putter around trying to get stuff done.  I do feel a little bit guilty that I don't just sit and hold and stare at her as much as I did with Chloë.  But I do get to snuggle her every two or three hours when she gets hungry.  She is so happy when someone is holding her and making faces at her.  She smiles and coos, and is so close to laughing.  She's given me a few one-second laugh sounds when I nibble her neck.  But she has yet to break into a full laugh.

She eats still eats every 2 hours or so during the day, but will give me about a 6 hour stretch at night, as long as she is swaddled.  She sleeps in the bassinet next to our bed, and it works out great.  She is awake a lot in the mornings, and a little bit in the evenings.  She is such a great baby.  I love her so much.

She is awfully adorable.  And getting quite rolly poly. 

 

 The eyes.  The jowls.  The pouty lip.  I love this girl.

She loves making spit bubbles.

And she really loves smiling at her mama.

She and her sister get along so well.

She poops a lot.  That is what babies do.  I'll give you one guess as to what she was doing at the moment this picture was taken:

Then apparently she thought it was knee-slappin' hilarious.

My chubby, happy girl.

Chloë loves her.

Her first dance with her Papa.

Getting all fresh and clean.

Lounging in her bouncy chair.

Really, I do apologize for the lousy layout.  I've spent about an hour trying to figure out this silly new system, and am about ready to throw my computer through the window.  Not really.  I think I'll just have to publish this less-than-perfect post and I'll go start dinner.