Day 9 - 40 Days of Blogging

What could possibly be more fun than giving a dog a bath?

I'll tell you! 

Having FOUR little hands 'helping' you give a dog a bath! ;)

Day 8 - 40 Days of Blogging

Ellie - 18 Months!

It's just crazy that my little girl is 18 MONTHS! Seriously! Somehow time seems to magically go faster after you have a child, but I swear when you have a 2nd child, it goes even faster!

This girl...she really is the best. It has been so much fun to raise a daughter the past 18 months. And so different from my boy. It is so much fun to watch her grow. She was the littlest peanut when she was born and now she has grown into the 85ish percentile for weight! And boy is she a busy little girl. She doesn't slow down...at all!

I get such a kick out of watching her play. She runs EVERYWHERE! Ask her to go get something, she takes of running. Ask her to come with you, she runs right behind you. It's super cute to watch!

She loves to give kisses. She is a girly-girl, but can definitely hold her own. She loves when we tell her how pretty she is...and goes to Daddy every morning and points to her 'pretty hair' or 'pretty outfit'...and then Daddy gushes over just how beautiful she is. Melts my heart...love it!

Since I recently started putting her hair in a ponytail or pigtails...she always has to come look at my hair...and then we talk about how we both have ponytails in our hair. She loves that we are the same...and I love that she love it! ;)

She knows just what buttons to push to make her brother upset. For example - she has this really high-pitch icky sounding scream/yell that she does. And she will do it right in Isaiah's face. It really upsets him that she screams at him. To the point of tears sometimes. And all I can do is think...oh man, my little boy better toughen up and my little girl better tone it down! Ha!

Elle-belle LOVES Bailey. And Bailey has a very strong love-hate relationship with Ellie. She hates being smothered by her, but will tolerate it for food! ;)

And although I mentioned she knows how to get Zay going - boy does she LOVE her brother! If he is excited about something, she is excited! If he gets in trouble, she will be checking on him until he's out of timeout. If he is sad, she is concerned. If he is gone, she points to the pictures on the wall and says "Zay-Zay"! And they are getting better and better about actually having fun and playing together! What a blessing that I get to watch this relationship develop. I pray that they are always close!

Ellie's health has been super great! We have been blessed by a much easier journey (health-wise) with our second born. Her PKU is well managed and her and Zay have almost the exact same diet right now. Her formula recipe is 100mg Periflex formula, 150g skim milk + water. The skim milk will eventually be replaced with additional food, so she can eat a little more protein from food when she is older. She is getting 125mg Phe from food, which is the same as Zay. So I literally make the same amounts of food for them both, which has been great! When Ellie gets a cold, she gets over it 10 times faster than Zay. She rarely has problems sleeping...even if she is sick. Soooo much different than Zay! I'm pleased that we don't have to have 2 years of not sleeping through the night, like we had with Zay! Thanks, Elle-belle...your mama likes sleep! :)

Ellie only has 4 teeth right now! But I think she is getting another one too. She is taking forever to get teeth, but it does not slow her down from eating! She eats everything Zay does!!

I will be taking some 'official' 18 month pictures in the next week or so...but here are some snapshots from our day today! :)

Typical...one pigtail pulled out! 

Love her!

She can get ANYWHERE she wants...she is most likely about to bother poor Bailey!

Day 7 - 40 Days of Blogging

Crazy Hair

This little girl. She's a fun one! I've been quickly realizing that I feel like I have a steep learning curve with little girl's hair! I mean, I know how to do my own hair. I know how to french braid and do a variety of other braids and hairstyles...but this WILD and 'fluffy-feathery' hair that my little lady has...I'm at a loss! Will cutting it make it easier to manage? Will it grow out of this silly looking stage? Any other Mama of girls out there that can help me out???

A rare moment when she actually will keep a bow in!

Ponytails seems to work well and she keeps them in...but they are a little wild looking to me! ;)

Another ponytail!

What happens after she pulls her ponytail out!

What happens after a bath!

After naptime...crazy-wild hair!

Pigtails!

These might be my favorite option at the moment! 

Day 6 - 40 Days of Blogging

A Checkup.

We went to Zay's Thyroid checkup yesterday...and made it into a fun little Mommy & Zay day! I have to say, this little guy is a keeper. He generally will go with the flow and the older he gets the more fun it gets to hear him interact with others...in this case the nurses and doctors! 

It's beginning to be tradition...picture in the mirror at the UofI hospitals & clinics!

It's impossible not to love this kid!

Waiting room fun...or not so much. ;)

Blood pressure reading...he's a pro at this stuff!

Mommy's got this down...wait to bring out the snacks until we are in the patient room waiting (again) for the doctor. (I honestly can't complain...they normally see us pretty quickly, but there is bound to be some waiting!)

Zay's thyroid doctor...she's pretty great.

After the blood draw! They were pretty proud of him, so let him chase some bubbles!

"Zay, show me how tough you were!"

He loves the escalator...we usually can't take it because we have Ellie in the stroller, but today we could!

I stopped for a quick snack on the way home...I tried to convince Zay that he could get a 'special treat' (he can have skittles)...but he informs me "I don't like those, Mommy!" But he's thrilled with his own bottle of water! Love him! ;)

Day 5 - 40 Days of Blogging

Dinosaur Train

This last weekend we had the opportunity to take Zay to a Dinosaur Train performance at Gallager Bluedorn. I had a photo session earlier in the day, so since we were in town it worked out to go to this show with the Duncan family! And to be completely honest, Zay doesn't love this PBS show, but he REALLY enjoyed this live show! It helped that he has his little buddies with him!

Tiny, Shiny, and Buddy...and Mr. Conductor!

BIG dinosaur...I can't remember his name! ;)

Meeting Buddy and Tiny after the show!

And since Travis works at Gallager...he got us into the bounce house room - our three boys had the place all to themselves!

Silly, but happy little boys!

Day 4 - 40 Days of Blogging

Exercise.

Now here is a post for ya...2014 seems to be the year that I might actually consistently exercise for the ENTIRE year. Well, maybe I shouldn't get that excited about it, but so far so good this year! It's only been about, ummm, maybe...4 years or so since I can say I've worked out consistently. That might be an exaggeration, but not by much. ;)

For some reason, it takes me a while...a LONG while to get back into the whole exercise thing after I have babies. It's probably something to do with a little thing called sleep. I need it. And when I don't get it...well the idea of doing anything beyond the necessary daily tasks is a bit overwhelming.

Zay didn't consistently sleep through the night for TWO years...(he had many health problems that didn't help this cause), and Ellie was a bit better, as she started sleeping all night around 4 months, and was doing it consistently by 6 months. Yay!

So...now that I get to sleep, I feel like I can wake up and get a workout in...most days! I don't think I would be nearly as excited about this if it weren't for my extremely dedicated husband! I call him "trainer Shane", because if I need to know anything about working out - he's my guy. He researches a lot about fitness and then practices what he preaches! Good motivation!

Here are a few of my favorite workouts...I really like body weight workouts. Something to get my heart going, give me variety, and maybe even make me feel a bit sore the next day to prove I did work hard! ;) I'm not really competitive...as in, not at all, I just want to feel accomplished with my workouts. And these workouts are just modified ideas from blogs, instagram feeds and facebook pages I follow. I am NOT a trainer, so these workouts could be horrible, but they seem to work for me. And I do try to switch things up every so often, too! :)

Day 3 - 40 Days of Blogging

Zay has the BEST preschool teachers!

I received this picture as a text yesterday morning. It said "Isaiah wanted u to see what he made. :)"

I am absolutely not surprised that my little man convinced his teacher to text me this! Seriously, he is so into sending texts, pictures and emails! And I'm totally okay with it...because for one - I really think technology is okay for kids. It is the future. I always wonder when Zay will take 'keyboarding' in school. I bet whenever his little hands are big enough he will be at a computer typing away! And I also love it, because he is so into spelling words...see it's an educational activity! And hence, him being proud of spelling his name! He can sit for hours asking me how to spell different words. Just this morning - Shane and I were downstairs working out, and I had to help him write "40 Push ups" and "40 Pull ups"........that was 'his workout' he was going to do! ;) 

And here's one more pic...he spelled his sister's name. 

Anyway...I was super excited to see a tiny tidbit of Zay's day at Preschool. I always wonder what he is up to, and some days I get very little feedback from him. He knows that I'm always going to ask him who he sat by at snack time...so he coughs that info up right away! ;) 

Day 2 - 40 Days of Blogging

Eeeek! I can't even believe I'm going to show this...but this winter has got to end. I'm ready to SPRING CLEAN our home...and some open windows with refreshing spring air blowing through would be lovely too! Our poor coat closet has had it. Ick...check this out!

Bad, huh!?!

(I just want to note...I often give Zay and Ellie the job of taking shoes from the front/back door and put them away in the closet........and this is the results you get!!!)

This little girl was a BIG "help" in this 20 minute cleanup task! And notice...she discovered how fun it is to wear her brother's rain boots! ;)

Ahhh...much better!

Anyone else getting ready to do some spring cleaning? Have you heard of the 40 bags in 40 days challenge? I've done versions of this 'purging' challenge before and I'm making some strong attempts to do more cleaning/purging/organizing in the next few weeks!!

Day 1 - 40 Days of Blogging

Hide and Seek.

Some days Zay will beg me to play hide-and-seek. And seriously...this might be my least favorite game. It simply expels a lot of energy...that well, I need to save for laundry if I plan to ever attack the mountain at the end of my bed. But all-in-all, I have learned the great art of hollering 'I wonder where Zay could be!' in a great curiosity-infused tone! I do this while walking into every room pretending to look in every nook and cranny, turning around in circles, because you know he can definitely see me from two rooms down, so I want to make certain my acting is legit. All the while, I can hear where the soft giggles are coming from and I know with almost guaranteed certainty that he is in his normal hiding spot...mom and dad's bed! And even though I really don't enjoy going through the motions of hide-and-seek I can anticipate the the huge smile it will bring to MY face when I discover him...sitting patiently on our bed. And he can't stop from hiding his heartfelt thankfulness that I am playing his game. 

I often wonder...do we sometimes think that we are 'fooling' God while we are busy having fun, giggling our way through life? Like He doesn't know exactly where we are at? What our hearts are feeling? Do we think that we can really 'hide' from him? And when He finds us and brings us close...I can just imagine a great big smile on His face. And me...why yes, I am most definitely filled with thankfulness for God to once again reveal that in this life He is seeking me. He is finding me even in my silly games of hiding from Him. Amen to that. 

40 Days of Blogging

When my little boy was born 4+ years ago this blog was about the best thing I could have invested in. It simply was an outlet to write my thoughts, document my dreams and journal about my new role as a mom. Now...years later I dream about having the time and making the disciplined decision to sit down and keep up with this priceless diary of our family's memories. Not an easy task.

The challenge: 40 days of blogging! 

That's right - I have NO IDEA if this is attainable, however each year at lent I try to change something in my life. Usually something that will bring me closer to God...in the past it's been running/exercising (I usually have great quiet time while on runs/exercising), reading the Bible EVERY single day, sacrificing something...Facebook, sweets, etc. This year...I'm doing a blog challenge. The way I view this blog is when I look back on things I've written or photos I've documented I am sooooo thankful for all God has done in my life. This blog has been part of my testimony. Even when I read of the trials we went through...God was so present and I'm able to see this on the other side of the trial.

So...even if it is simply one sentence, one picture, heck...even one word! I will do my best to blog for 40 days. I pray that God is glorified by my simple and grateful heart.