Long Awaited (?) Update

Has it really been a month since my last blog post? Wow. And even that wasn't much of a post. Just a little "hey we got to our parents' homes safely" kind of thing. So, I guess I'm way overdue for an update of sorts.

...my phone is ringing, but it's in the living room and I have a sleeping baby on my lap. And if I try to move him at all, he'll wake up and there goes my blogging time. So, sorry to whoever called (most likely my mom). I'll check the voicemail you just left later. After the baby wakes up from his nap.

Oh, one matter of business before I continue (lest I forget, since I KNOW I will if I don't mention it now). Unfortunately, I had to change the comment settings on my blog here. I kept getting spam comments with links (never clicked on them, though). Most of the recent ones were in Asian characters (I think it might be Chinese?). I've been gradually upping the comment security for awhile now. First, I did the word security thing. Then I had it set up that I had to approve comments on older posts, but then the spammers started posting on more recent posts as well. Grrr. So, to prevent that from happening, I set it up so that I must approve ALL comments. I hate to do this, but I think it's the best option to keep the spammers outta here. I WILL approve everything that ISN'T spam:) Well...unless it's really mean or something. Generally, I will approve most comments, so don't let that deter you from commenting:)

In other news, yes, I am still taking pictures every day (I haven't taken any today yet - but I will). I'm ridiculously behind in posting them, though. I have 6 weeks worth of photos to post!! Craziness! Yeah, it's gonna take awhile to sort through all of those...

We've been back from our trip for a couple weeks now. We're all unpacked and such, but we're still trying to catch up on housework. Despite the fact that we left with a clean house. Ah well. C'est la vie. Cleaning with 2 kids is never easy. Especially when one of them MAKES most of the messes and the other wants to be held 24/7. I DID vacuum with Hyrum in the mei tai the other day and it worked pretty well. But I need to vacuum AGAIN already. Is it horrible of me to say I'm GLAD the last of the Play-doh just dried up?

So what HAVE we been up to? Trying to get/keep organized, for one thing. We've been LOVING the nice weather lately. We've gone on lots of walks lately. I recently set a goal of going on a walk every Mon-Weds-Fri and I haven't missed a day yet. But we only JUST started a week and a half ago. We typically walk to the park, let Emma play on the playground, and then walk home. But sometimes we have a picnic lunch or dinner or walk to the grocery store as well. Last night, we walked over to the nature park. I LOVE that everything is so close to where we live. It's so nice.

I have not, however, been on the computer much lately. Now that John's out of school for the summer, we actually get to *gasp* spend time together, both as a family and then as a couple once the kids are in bed. So we've been watching movies together, playing games, and sometimes we just hang out and talk. Oh, and we've been doing LOTS of reading lately. We checked out a whole bunch of books (and a couple of movies) from the library.

Haha, so I just got an email from my mom - sure enough, she's the call I missed. I'm definitely not surprised; the 2 people who call me the most are my husband and my mom, and John was taking a nap at the time.

Hm, what else? John's trying to get as many hours at work as he can, but once again, hours are hard to come by because of this LOVELY economy. He opened up his availability a ton recently, so we've been getting more hours for him. Thankfully, we have money set aside for next month's rent, but...that's about it. Good thing Friday is pay day!! And he had fairly decent hours for that pay period, too, so that will definitely help.

Oh, we got a storage unit recently. Like, end of March recently. We have lots of stuff we want to keep (clothes the kids have grown out of, clothes that are currently too big for them, holiday decor, books we want but don't read frequently, etc), but our 2 bedroom apartment was getting way overcrowded. So we decided to get a storage unit. It's way cheap, too - only $16/month. It's made SUCH a difference! We've opened up so much space in our apartment. Because of this, we were able to move all the toys to the kids' room. Yay for a less cluttered living room!! We also put 5 or 6 boxes of books in storage and a bookshelf as well. Next, to get that treadmill in the storage unit...but it won't fit in our little Corolla, so we'll have to ask some friends with a bigger vehicle and some strong guys to help with it.

Also, while we were on vacation, Emma's goldfish died. But we had that one for awhile, so I'm not surprised. I knew it was bound to happen eventually. It's just kind of ironic that it literally died the day we got back (but earlier in the day, so it was before we got back). Our friends/neighbors who watched it felt bad, I'm sure, but it's totally fine. After all, we kept forgetting to feed it since Hyrum was born. Poor fish wouldn't get fed for like 3 days, then John and I would BOTH feed it on the same day without realizing until after the fact. And um, we hadn't cleaned the tank in 4 months...so, really, it's our own fault that it died. It just happened on somebody else's watch. We now have a new goldfish, and this one actually has a name (we purposefully avoided naming them before). Emma named him Nemo. Of course. So, uh...when he dies, we'll have to tell her Nemo is dead. She didn't seem upset when we told her about the deceased fish's passing, but who knows how much more she'll understand when "Nemo" eventually gets flushed.

My kids are just adorable. They are seriously the cutest and sweetest kids ever. I know, every mom thinks that. But really, mine ARE. I know it's not just my mommy bias, too. People are always telling me how cute they are. And, well, they're right! Time for some updates on the 2 cutest kids ever.

Emma will be 2.5 at the end of the month and she is SO smart. She just picks up on EVERYthing. She's like a cute little knowledge sponge. She says the cutest and funniest things.

For instance, on Mother's Day, I was trying to wake John up so we could get ready for church. I was a bit grouchy about it because, hey, it's Mother's Day and I wanted to sleep in but church is at 9. I said to John, "if I don't get to sleep in, neither do YOU!" Emma came out of her room just then and said, "Mommy, no fussing. That's not ok. You need time out." LOL!! So...my 2 year old tried to put me in time out on Mother's Day.

She says things like that ALL the time. She's SUCH a little mommy, trying to tell us (and other kids) how to behave and letting us know when Hyrum needs something ("oh baby's crying," "he's hungry, Mommy - he needs special milk," "Hyrum has poopy diaper," etc). She often hears him crying before I do. Emma totally imitates my mommy-ing. She talks to Hyrum and her baby dolls (and other toys too) the same way I talk to Hyrum. She'll say, "it's ok, Hyrum, I'm right here" or "I'm coming, baby!" etc. And, as you may have seen from a previous P365 post, she "feeds" her baby dolls the same way I feed Hyrum:D

Speaking of diapers...Emma has sort of starting potty training. We're not going hard-core or anything at this point. But we are getting her to sit on her potty every now and then. It's fairly unstructured right now. We're mainly letting her get used to the idea and such. But she HAS peed in her potty. I made her a potty chart and she knows that if she goes in the potty she gets a sticker. She's really good about sitting on it, too. Most of the time, she's the one who initiates sitting on it. She's only successfully used it once, but we'll get there.

One of Emma's favorite things to say these days is, "I poopy diaper - Daddy change it." LOL! No complaints here;) Well...except for the fact that she says this about 20 times every night when we're trying to put her to bed. At first, it was just a stalling tactic to delay bedtime. It still is, BUT...she usually DOES have a wet diaper when we check (a poopy diaper is synonymous with a wet diaper to her). I think she pees on purpose to delay the inevitable. She KNOWS we won't make her go to bed in a wet diaper...

Emma knows so many things. It always amazes me what she knows. She talks ALL the time at home. Around other people, it varies. Sometimes she's a chatterbox, but usually she plays the shy card out in public - UNLESS there are other kids to play with. Then, she talks to them and tries to mommy them.

There's SO much more to post about how adorable and funny Emma is, but I need to wrap this up so we can go grocery shopping. To sum up, Emma is the funniest, cutest, sweetest little girl ever. We love having her in our family!

Hyrum is 4.5 months old!! How did that happen!? He's growing super-fast. At his 4 month check up, he weighed in at 14 lbs 12 oz and was 25" long. TOTAL opposite of my so-small-she's-not-on-the-charts daughter. I think we need to move him up to bigger diapers soon...he's been pooping out of them a lot lately. We'll use up what we have first.

Anyway. Hyrum update. He's been rolling over for a few weeks now, but he does NOT like tummy time, so he doesn't get many opportunities to do so. Most of the time, when we DO put him on his tummy, he cries and cries until we pick him up. But he CAN roll over. He frequently rolls onto his side when he's laying on his back. He can also turn himself in circles.

Hyrum has SUCH a cute laugh! He laughs, smiles, and coos all the time. He laughs more for Emma than for anyone else. It's SO cute. I love seeing how much my kids adore each other. He watches her all the time, too. He's a very happy baby, for the most part. He gets pretty grumpy when he's really tired or hungry, or when he has a really poopy diaper, but I definitely can't blame him. Heck, I get grouchy when I'm overtired or hungry, too!

Hyrum is a really good sleeper. He usually only wakes up once at night to nurse, then falls right back to sleep when he's satisfied. And then he lets me sleep in in the morning. It's awesome. Naps...well...he only wants to nap if someone is holding him. He typically falls asleep nursing while Emma's napping. So, yay for coordinating naps...but boo for not being able to put him down without waking him up. I typically use that time to read a book or get online. Emma was the same way with naps at that age. Eventually we'll have to get him used to napping by himself, but I don't think he's quite ready for that yet. Soon, hopefully.

Hyrum is a very sweet, lovable, cuddly little boy. We love having him in our family!

Anyway, as always, there's way more to write, and about a billion pictures to post (ok so more like 45-50 ish), but I have to go get ready to go grocery shopping before it gets too late. Hopefully I'll get pictures and the few digiscrap projects I've done recently up soon. In the meantime, enjoy the write-up:)