Yay Christmas Tree!

Jeremiah's been asking for a Christmas tree every day since we started seeing them (BEFORE THANKSGIVING) in the stores. We finally picked ours out yesterday.

We found ours really quickly!


J helped Shawn take it off the roof.


J helped me decorate. Unfortunately, he didn't understand that you're not supposed to hang all the ornaments in the same exact spot. I had to go back and 'fix' his work after he moved to another spot. But he was a good helper, and was so excited to help out.


Shawn and I went to the Barrett-Jackson Auction party at Barney's at the Scottsdale mall. It was fun, but literally out of our league! We're talking $300 hats and belts. And designers I had never even heard of - this is like beyond Louis Vuitton, Armani, Coach, Burberry, etc...a whole other world. We did have a nice time, though.


And just a cute picture of the kids on J's couch. Sarah has gotten so big!

(when she was first born)

8 months!

This mom thing the second time around is so different! I know that every month when Jeremiah turned whatever month during his first year, I wrote a blog post about it. This time I can barely get organized enough to blog once a week! Poor baby Sarah. She's getting so big and even though sometimes it feels like the days are long, they've really flown by.

She's just precious and funny and I really hope she always smiles as much as she does now.


She was cracking up!


Shawn and I were still eating dinner and we excused J and let Sarah down - this is what we found.


How a lot of my time is spent - with a baby hanging off me! Ha ha! (J was helping me make salad dressing.)


J has been loving the dogs lately - it's sweet.


Sarah loves to be outside. I can't wait til she's walking so her crawling all over the sand and grass won't gross me out anymore!


We had an amazing Thanksgiving - J went without a nap (and did pretty good!) and Sarah napped for 2 1/2 hours in my mom and Ronnie's bedroom in the pack 'n play. It was better than I could have imagined. I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful family here in Arizona to celebrate with!

Just a cute shot of J.


He ate with the kids - and he loved it!

So much to update...

And so little time. I'll try to be as quick as possible.

(beautiful family pics done by Andrea Whittle.)

Sweet baby Sarah is growing up very quickly. She's full on crawling now and is pulling up on everything and everyone. She's slowly cruising furniture and has tried to walk from one object to another and fallen many times. She's tough though. Her allergy tests did come back 100% normal, so we've forged ahead with solid foods. Right now she only eats Cheerios, sweet potatoes, and applesauce. I'll be adding more as she gets older - she did sneak a french fry from Jeremiah the other day - yikes. She's getting less clingy - I've been able to leave her in childcare without constant screaming - YAY! However if I'm in the room she will do her best to wiggle out of the arms of whoever happens to be holding her to get back to me. If that doesn't work, then shrieking begins.



My wild child Jeremiah - he makes me laugh all the time. His language skills are really taking off, even though it takes a little while for people other than Shawn or I to understand him, it seems to improve daily. He speaks in sentences most of the time now and he says the funniest stuff. Yesterday on the way home from a friends house he told me "J grow up and drive Buh-buh's (Grandpa G) car." I'm not sure where that came from, I think I must have told him at some point that when he was older he could drive. It was a very random thought but made me laugh.

We've had such a fun busy week or two since I last posted! Bubbie (Shawn's mom) came to visit us and we had such a fun time! J was attached to Bubbie like crazy and asks for her every day after his nap since she left. Sarah...was Sarah and screamed if I was in the same room while Bubbie held her. :(

A quick happy moment.


Milking the cow at the zoo!


Phoenix childrens museum.


I came downstairs one night after putting Sarah down to find the boys doing this...yikes.


On Sunday the 15th, Sarah was dedicated at our church, Poiema. It was such a blessing because not only did my mom and Ronnie come but Anita was able to be there too! She never saw Jeremiah's.


A shot of Bubbie, her son, and his son. Cute!


Since we had our family pictures done, I decided to finally update our 'picture wall' since baby Sarah's been around for...oh...7 1/2 months and there were no pictures of her up on the wall! I'm terrible. So this was before...


And this is after...turned out ok. (I just went to Goodwill and bought a bunch of 5x7 frames for $1 each! what a deal!)

FINALLY!

We have the internet back at the house. Phew!
Quick update:

Rock star.


Halloween.


Group shot.


Hot chocolate and Elmo Jammies (the one cold night we've had so far.)


Me & J.


J being his goofy self. He picks flowers and then 'sneezes' them everywhere. He also yells for "Bubbie" - his grandma, Shawn's mom - every time an airplane flies overhead.


Sarah crawling. You may want to watch with the sound off, I was not feeling 100% so my voice is cracking and I'm also, horror of horrors, snapping my gum. Eek. She started crawling on 10/28 (1 day after she turned 7 months) and now two weeks later has realized that it's not so bad to be able to move on your own.

no internet

So, our internet at home is down, I haven't been able to update. Small news- Sarah is crawling. Still no reports on her blood panel. J is doing great. Will add pics when we have internet again.

If I go crazy it's her fault.

Why do I say that? Well, sweet baby Sarah started on solids (rice cereal, then avacado (spaced out 5 days apart), then bananas). She started developing eczema and then randomly was having allergic reactions, much like this:

It's hard to see in the photo but her eyes are red and swollen and her face is blotchy and a little swollen too.

It wasn't after eating or during eating, they would come on suddenly and then fade. After it happened 2 days in a row I took her to the pediatrician who FINALLY offered to have blood drawn for a pediatric allergy panel. I am still waiting on the results but have decided to stop all solids until the beginning of November and then start over at an even slower introduction schedule.

This means she's back to relying on me for everything. Which I don't mind but for some reason she's gone from a relatively happy child to a shrieking terror if I dare set her down, walk away, put her in the carseat or in our (very nice and expensive) stroller. It's frustrating. I'd like to put her in child care and not have someone get me after 45 minutes because she won't stop crying. Or be able to walk around the zoo with our friends and not have to leave because she's screaming at the top of her lungs because she's in the stroller and not in my arms. I know this is temporary and I keep telling myself that but I really wish it would STOP NOW. I like time away from my babies - it makes me love them more. Thank God she sleeps on her own, though.

Enough of my venting though. She's still gorgeous and sweet and happy as long as I'm doing whatever she wants, LOL. And J is being great through this difficult phase with Sarah, thank God. I don't know what I'd do with both of them losing it on a consistent basis.

J finger painting. What a mess!


Sarah loved her sippy cup.


First time in the sand. She wasn't too sure.


I found a sand art kit at Target for $5. I used to love making these at Great America when I was a kid - J also enjoyed it. He made one for Shawn since Shawn always seems to get upset when I throw J's "art" away.


Shawn's is the smaller one.


Sarah loves it when J pushes/pulls her in the walker. She's nearly tall enough to reach the floor - maybe another 1/2" and she'll be there. J, on the other hand, was actually walking on his own before he was tall enough to use it!


Fishing with Grandpa - he only tangled the line a couple of times.


Sarah helped Grandpa fish.

Sweet Pea

Sarah is 6 months old (as of a few days ago...oops). She had her check up and she's 17lbs 12.5oz (80th percentile) and is 28" long (still off the charts for heights). The doctor thinks she'll slow down on weight gain because she's a mover - she was impressed with how well Sarah was sitting up for her age. She's doing great.

She's really starting to like Daddy!


Cereal - YUMMY! She did great. No reactions at all!


My sweet 6 month old.


J being a cool dude. It is so hard to get a picture of him!

Too big

Both kids are getting way too big, too fast. J's starting to speak much better, he's doing 3 & 4 word sentences. "Mommy, fop sing eese" (mommy stop singing please) and other lovely things. He's also started counting to ten but I don't think he understands the actual concept of numbers - he insists he has 2 sisters, 2 mommies, and 2 daddies. (LOL!) When he "counts" he always goes up to 2 for just 1. Someday. He's great on colors. He loves the color green. Orange he struggles with - he calls it either yellow or red.

Sarah, is already starting to babble a little. Just little 'dadadada's here and there, it's so cute. Haven't been able to capture it on video though. She also loves to stand up and is pretty strong. She can't get to standing herself (although sometimes she throws herself forward while she's sitting like she's trying to) but if you stand her up next to something she'll hold on. She can't wait to start eating food - I just bought her a little booster seat and some cereal, which we'll probably start on Sunday. With all her issues, I'm a little nervous, but I am pretty sure she'll do fine. (of course we'll have benadryl just in case)

First trip to Costco sitting next to each other. They did great. J was sweet and kept kissing her head. (awww!)


Like I said, he's getting too big.


The kids with Grandma and Grandpa G. I think this is the first time Sarah's been held by my mom and she didn't start screaming. Yay!


Standing up!


J's amazing tower of blocks.

They crack me up

Even when I feel like hitting my head on the steering wheel of the van, (which has happened a couple times in the last few days, J has impetigo so we're staying away from friends and we also took away his binky in the car so there's lots of yelling from him and Sarah screams....), suddenly there will be quiet and they're both laughing at each other. Makes it feel somewhat worth it. Although...couldn't we just skip all the screaming and stick with the laughing?

After a nap, I was able to snap a few pictures. He's been so anti-camera lately. I was getting the super serious face from him and couldn't stop laughing.


He looks so grown up in this picture...like he's thinking: "Really Mom....More pictures??"


Finally my laughing broke him, and he started laughing too!


And little miss Sweet Pea is sitting up. She loves the camera, always has a smile ready when I point it at her.


Sweet kids. I love them so much.

Flag

Today (the Friday of Labor Day Weekend), we decided to be spontaneous and drive up to Flagstaff. We're sick of the heat and thought it would be fun, plus Sarah's getting better about being in the car. We headed to...


J was fascinated with the gnome guy.


You stuck your hand in his mouth - if you told the truth you could get it out. Both our hands are still attached to our bodies. :-)


A tree maze. J liked it fine the first time with Shawn but when I tried to go through with him he ran out. Hmmm...


Sarah just observed from the stroller.


The storm lurking in the background would eventually catch up to us.


The mountain is hidden by the rainstorm!


J being his usual cute self.


"feeding" a fake raven


We watched a bit of the raptor show at the arboritum, til J threw a fit and the rain started. But...this bird was named Bailey....(it's a hawk of some sort, he flew over the audience!)


And this bird (a raven with 1 foot) was named Lily! We thought it was funny.


On the way home we saw storm clouds ahead...


...and we ended driving THROUGH a thunderstorm. It felt like we were in the cloud - we were driving through the mountains and could see where the lightning hit the ground, and hear the thunder not even a second after the lightning strike. The rain was pouring down, the road looked like a river - rocks from the sides of the mountain were falling down! People were pulling over but not us! We made it through just fine but it was quite incredible.


And, to end the trip on a high note, J chewed on his disgustingly dirty toes. EWWW!