Kiddos

Lately Aleigh has been throwing fits daily. It is not fun! She will scream her little head off for oh about 10 mins. before she calms down. It will be for all sort of different reasons like changing her diaper, not giving her something she wants or not paying her attention. Yesterday she was mad I was feeding Amelia and not able to hold her after a diaper change (which she hates) so the whole time I fed Amelia, Aleigh screamed at the top of her lungs while rolling on the couch next to me. Jake and I are still talking about how to handle these breakdowns. So far we just say screaming is not acceptable and I will talk to u when u are through then we ignore her until she stops since most of the time it is our attention she wants and we dont want her to think oh I can just scream to get their attention. My Dr. mentioned time out but I am not too sure how to do that at her age. I think she would just keep following me, and with my hands also full with Amelia I feel like that could get complicated. I know some do time out in the crib but wouldnt that make them think bedtime is punishment? I want Aleigh to only think of bed as a good thing.

Anyways to some cute things. Aleigh's new thing to do is to take out Amelia's paci then put it back in, then take it out, over and over again. Sometimes she will try to put it in her nose or her eye if I don't catch her fast enough. Oh boy. Haha Amelia most of the time doesn't even mind this game she just thinks Aleigh is fascinating to watch.

Another fun fact is Amelia thinks pat-a-cake is funny and Aleigh likes to do the motions along with us. I have made up a different more logical version of pat-a-cake and am now wondering if that was a bad idea. At costco the other day a lady was trying to play the game with Aleigh and Aleigh started to do my version of the game lol. I am worried she is going to go to school one day and show everyone my version and not know the normal version. Hmmm

So this next saturday jake and I are going to go see the Lion King show. Should be fun to see. It starts at 8pm so we are hoping Aleigh will go to bed by 7 and stay asleep for my friend Nikki as she doesnt do well with other people. She has known Nikki since she was born and sees her atleast every other week sometimes more. I dont understand her stranger anxiety especially since Nikki is not even a stranger. Hopefully it will somewhat end as time goes on and hopefully she will just sleep well that night.

This sunday we are going on a whale watching hike with our small group from church! It should be fun it is a group with two other families. One family has 2 boys, one close to Aleigh's age. The other family has 3 girls, one also close to Aleigh's age. Very blessed to know them all. Should be a fun hike!

Then not this tuesday but the next is the auction for the place we are living in. It should be interesting to see what happens.

The weekend after the auction the 4 of us are going on a trip to the big island! We will see a black sand beach, a green sand beach, stay in a tiny cabin in volcano national park, see a waterfall, visit the southern most point in the US, and stay one night and day on a pretty beach. It will be nice. We have never went on a vacation just us before without visiting friends or family so this will be different than most our trips. Only 3 nights but it should be fantastic!

The next two weeks will be a blast and hopefully sometime in those 2 weeks Jake will hear back from the job in Dallas!

Decisions

What is going on in the kids world? Amelia has been rolling from her back to her belly for almost a week now! I think its funny how she used to not like belly time until she could put herself on her belly, now she all of a sudden loves it. She only gets frustrated when she can't roll back to her back, but soon enough she will get there. It is interesting Aleigh learned belly to back before back to belly. She is 14 weeks old as of yesterday! I might even retire her 0-3month clothes today and try to sell them and use that money for 24 month size clothes for Aleigh.

Aleigh is now 15 months. She had her dr. Appointment a couple days ago. She is growing great. She is starting to lose her baby chub which is a little sad. She is now back to the 50% for height and weight. She really does NOT like the Dr. She just cries and cries and cries. I don't think the years of dr. Appts will be fun with her. Aleigh is also getting her 8th tooth in so she is very cranky, she doesnt do well while teething.

Now for the major life events. The place we are living in is going to auction the beginning of March and if it sells for cheap we just might buy it. You have to have 10% down so it would have to sell for under $90, 000 for us to buy it. It is estimated worth is $220, 000 so that would be an amazing deal! We have lived in it for 1&1/2 yrs so we know all the issues with the place. Really only small things would need to be fixed. So we are trying to figure out all the details with that to make sure it is a wise investment. Second, Jake could possibly be getting a job in Dallas, at the dallas aquarium. His coworker worked there for many years and moved up in the company. He called for Jake and talked to the person in charge and even though there isnt a position open they are very interested in him and will talk to the owner and see if they will open a position for him. They already know what position he would work in and everything. So our lives right now are in limbo. We have no idea what will happen. It could be neither and we have to just find another rental, it could be Dallas and we get pre-approved and try to immediately buy a house there, it could be no job but this house we are in now and we would own it until we move than sell it for close to what it is worth at that time. Or both this house and the job happens! Yikes! That is the scary but exciting one.

It could be such a good deal to buy this house so we cant pass it up. We are informed that if nobody else bids we could walk away buying it for a dollar. But if it was to go for our maximum amount then we took out every penny of our savings. The nice thing is apparently we will get our rent back for the last 3 months though so then we could use that towards moving costs. But the other desicion is if we buy here should we rent it for a couple years as the rental market is amazing in hawaii or do we immediately turn around and sell it. If we sold it for $200, 000 we could turn around and use that extra money for a nice house in dallas. That is what I would prefer to do but time wise I dont know how it would work out. Plus the possibilty of owning a place with no incoming rent and paying rent for another place in dallas is a little scary even though the mortgage for the auction house would be so little.

Please be praying for us as this is a true test for us to trust God in what he is doing. We are blind to many things and those things are all going to happen around the same time. The auction is in less than 3 weeks. If we dont get it we have less than 60 days to find another rental. The job in Dallas will probably let us know within the next couple weeks if they want him but apparently would want him very soon if they do. If that is the case then we have to either sell or transport all our stuff to Dallas and find a place to live there.

Changing

Being a mom has turned me into an insomniac. I never had any sleep problems before motherhood. I am so used to babies waking me through the night that after 6 hrs of interrupted sleep I can no longer sleep. It usually after Amelia eats the last time around 4-6am I will then be wide awake and can't go back to sleep. So here I am writing a blog.

Its amazing how fast my girls are growing up. Amelia is almost the age where she is going to start advancing pretty fast. It seemed like things really get moving once they start rolling over. She is 12 weeks now and Aleigh started rolling over at 15 weeks! Her movements are now less jerky and her neck muscles are getting stronger and stronger. She is slowly starting to giggle more. I have never been good at getting Aleigh to laugh when she was little I would try so hard then Jake would do the smallest thing and she would laugh uncontrollably. Well the same thing is happening with Amelia haha. Oh well I guess I am just the cuddle monster not so much the source of laughter. I'll take it.

Aleigh is also changing all the time. I did think we were going to have to enroll her in dancing as she loved dancing. Now she will still dance to music here and there but not quite like before. Before we heard a police car with its sirens drive by and there she was dancing to it. Now she doesn't even come up to me with her pooh bear or mickey mouse stuffed toy asking me to make it sing and dance. I kinda miss those days already. Oh well. Now our days are filled with climbing. Yipee! :-/ YIKES! She is such a daring little girl. Not scared of anything it seems, except for strangers. She can now climb on the couch and loves climbing on the big diaper boxes, you know the ones from costco, that are pretty tall. Diaper boxes don't have much standing space once on. It scares me every move she makes but somehow she has learned how to get on and off them. She has had a few falls but I know that is how she is going to learn her limitations on what her body can do and how to do it safely. The first night she found out she could climb onto the couch she thought it was the funnest thing. She decided it was a fun place to run and to try to walk directly off of. I would say the couch is for sitting and if she wouldnt sit I would put her on the floor. Well there she was on it running again. Boy oh boy. While I was taking care of Amelia I see her walking over to the armrest to go up a little higher she starts to try and stand on it. I got so freaked out for the first time I used her full name. ALEIGH GRACE MADISON! She got so startled she froze haha. Thankfully she didnt fall off the armrest. But I scared her enough she cried for awhile :( she doesn't like doing anything wrong, it makes her sad. When I tell her not to do something she either laughs at me and thinks its a game and tries again or she will burst out in tears. We will have fun with this over the years, I'm sure :(

I do love how my girls are learning and growing and will definately enjoy the days ahead. I will miss some of the cute moments of the past though as they start doing new things.

Love being a mom!

It doesn't matter how many times in a day I have to read "spot's first walk", or "brown bear brown bear what do you see" I love being a mom. I was made for this gig. Those are currently 2 of Aleigh's favorite books. She also loves any book that has horses in them. That thought excites me, maybe we will have a horseback rider in the family! I believe she is about to start talking. She has learned so many words. In the books I ask her to point to such and such and she is really good about remembering animal names. How can she not be an animal lover as jake and I are her parents? ;)

It doesn't matter how tired I am from my morning run I will gladly still chase Aleigh through the house. I go running 3 times a week now. I am training myself to run in a 5k. Out of the 8 week program I am in week 5! Where we live has a ton of hills so it is exhausting, but Aleigh's favorite game right now is chase and to see her happy I will happily chase her around the house until we are both exhausted.

It doesn't matter how I want to just sit down and relax when I can, instead I have to wash bottles and sippy cups,  the laundry, do the dishes and make meals. I try my best to be prepared so when Jake is home we can all have fun together. Sometimes I get Aleigh's food ready for the whole day the night before. It doesn't matter what tv shows might be tempting me my family is more important. Whatever way I can spend more time with them is the best time spent.

It doesn't matter how many times I have to pick up all of Aleigh's messes. She loves to explore and she loves to make a mess. I am currently taking pictures of all these messes to put side by side in a photo album. Every mess to me is a memory watching her discover and learn something new. One day she will learn how to pick up the mess so I won't have to but every kid needs to make a mess once in a while, it's another way to learn. Aleigh is very particular about her books. If she walks in her room and sees them in the bookcase where they belong she immediately throws them on the floor, even if she doesn't look at a single picture apparently they belong on the floor. Who am I to tell her no? This is part of her personality. I will show her how we put them back up and as long as she learns one day to pick up her mess why stop her from making the mess.

It doesn't matter how many times a day I have to sing the "winnie the pooh" and "mickey mouse" theme song, I will love seeing Aleigh smile and dance to the songs. Aleigh has a few pooh bear stuffed animals and one mickey mouse stuffed animal. One day she brought them to me so I decided to sing their songs while making them dance. What a fun mistake that was haha. Throughout the day she kept bringing them back to me and dancing asking me to sing the songs and how could I say no? Now months later everyday, multiple times a day I have to sing those songs who knows how many times.

It doesn't matter how many times through the night I have to wake and feed Amelia. Thankfully she usually only eats twice a night now, but even when it was 4 times a night it was ok. If it meant I got to see the smile on her face as she fell back asleep with a full belly, I was in heaven. She is just a precious little girl. I love hearing her giggle in the middle of the night. I just can't wait until she giggles while awake. The last couple days she had given slight giggles while awake but I almost missed them they were so slight.

It doesnt matter how many times I have to sing lullabies to both of them. When I feed Amelia I have to also preoccupy Aleigh because she gets a little jealous. Usually I give her something to drink. Sometimes I try and time her snack time to be when Amelia eats. Sometimes though when Amelia is hungry and Aleigh is jealous and crying I just sing to them. They both calm down and to have two calm quiet happy little ones at the same time is always music to my ears no matter how many songs I have to sing.

It doesn't matter how many booboos I have to kiss or how many tears I have to wipe away all the smiles, hugs and giggles make up for all the difficult times. I wouldn't have my life any other way. I just love being a mom and am so incredibly blessed to have these 2 girls to take care of everyday, they amaze me no matter how many dirty diapers I have to change, which can also be pretty amazing. ;-)

New things

While I sit here wide awake at 1 am I just thought I would update everyone on the new happenings in our lives.

Jake applied for a job in Denver, Colorado. We are still trying to figure out if we are supposed to be staying in Hawaii for several more years or if it is time to move on. We really don't want to move right now because we love it here and are extremely tired of moving. But since we have to move from our apartment anyways we thought we would test the waters to make sure we are doing what God wants us to do.

We are also looking for a place here in Hawaii. It is hard to find a rental in our price range that looks atleast somewhat nice and that accepts our dog.

We have also decided we want to see what we would qualify for a mortgage. If we qualify for enough we are tempted to go to the auction and possibly buy the place we are in now. The only downside is we are in a tiny place, we have already outgrown it. But we know everything else we can afford out here will be about the same size. Plus when we do move back to the mainland we can always rent it out and make money off of it. The rental market out here is great. Everything goes really fast.

We will be coming back to Tulsa for a vacation in the spring! We won't buy tickets until we know for sure if we are supposed to move/stay as that would be a waste of money if we ended up moving. But we will be back soon. I can't wait to see everybody again!

Aleigh is becoming very jealous when I do anything with Amelia. If I feed her, Aleigh cries, if I hold her she also cries. Yesterday she got angry with me because I was holding a crying Amelia and wasn't reading a book to her, so she shoved the book in my face, the corner hit me. I told Aleigh that it hurt and said don't do that so then she grabs the book again lays it on top of amelia's face and cries. I take the book off her face and once again tell her I can't read to her right now as her sister needs me and to not hurt her sister. She then goes picks up a toy, looks at me with this mad face and throws her toy down on the ground as hard as she can. Lol it makes me laugh now thinking about it. Boy do we all have some learning ahead of us. I think she might be starting the temper tantrums a little early.

Aleigh does love her little sister though as long as she is still getting all the attention. When I burp Amelia she likes helping me and gets a kick out of patting her back like mommy does. She also likes playing with her baby doll and trying to hold the doll like mommy does her sister and she will rock with the doll. She also is becoming very good about being gentle with her sister. She used to touch her a little too hard but has learned what gentle means and when I say the word, she smiles and barely touches Amelia. The other day I also saw Aleigh putting her head next to Amelia's so they touched and just leaving it there for awhile.

I really want to try to go back to sleep now. After 14 months of waking up through the night I am so used to being awake that it is becoming hard for me to go back to sleep after waking. I really hope that ends. I used to be the best sleeper. If I dont get much sleep anymore it is only my fault since my two girls are pretty good about sleeping at night. I should have no excuse for not getting 8 hrs each night. I pray my habit does not continue as I am very tired each day.

Love to all
Jennifer

Miss Amelia

Amelia has to be the most easy going baby. I cannot believe how blessed I am to have such beautiful sweet girls as my daughters. I always knew God will never give you more than you can handle. When I was pregnant I didn't know how God was going to get me through the days when I would be alone with both of them. I was very excited for those days as I knew they would be fun and this has always been my dream. I knew though that nothing is perfect and I would have some stressful moments. I now know God made Amelia such a laid back baby to help me in those stressful moments  Thank you God!

I have been on my own, 9 hrs a day, with the girls for a week now. It's amazing how both my babies have made their own routine schedule without even the slightest help from me. The funny thing is their schedules are almost identical except for the amount of feeds and the amount of naps. They both wake usually sometime between 6-7am wanting breakfast at the same time. Then Amelia takes a nap around 9am. They both take a nap from 11am-1pm(ish). They both want lunch after they wake at the same time. Amelia then takes her 3rd nap around 3pm. They both as want dinner about the same time and they both have their bedtime at about 7pm. The funny thing is sometimes they even poo their diapers at the same time. This has made me become great at multitasking.

After a week I have finally come up with the best way to get them both to sleep at the time. Aleigh does not fall asleep on her own, which is ok with me because I enjoy the cuddles and know this will end soon enough so I am going to enjoy it. Because of this though I cannot hold them both to sleep. I have tried it just frustrates them both as neither can get comfy. I have also tried many other ways. The best way I have come across is to hold Aleigh to sleep and put Amelia in the swing and the music from the swing outs them both to sleep really fast. Then I put Aleigh in her crib and take Amelia out of the room so she can't wake Aleigh if she starts to cry. I did not want to use the swing to get Amelia to sleep as I have always felt like babies need to be held more than being put in something, but us moms have to do what we have to do!

No words can explain exactly how much I am enjoying this life. I am doing exactly what I have always wanted to do. Everytime I see those big purely authentic smiles from my girls my heart just melts. Aleigh I think is on the verge of talking as she is so curious of words. She amazes me everyday with how smart she is. Amelia started cooing over a week ago and those sweet sounds coming from her and the look of pure joy in her eyes put me in awe of the amazing creation God has made. Everytime I hear her laugh in her sleep makes me giggle like a little schoolgirl. I cannot wait until the day she starts laughing while awake. Baby laughter is the best medicine. Aleigh has also become a great helper. She now helps me try and burp Amelia by patting her on the back the same time as me. If Amelia drops her paci she also picks it back up and either hands it to me or tries to put it in Amelia's mouth. She also holds her little sister's hand atleast once a day. I just don't know how this life could get any better!

Bring on 2014

It's crazy how fast 2013 flew by. Aleigh isn't a baby anymore, and I feel like I didn't fully take in each day of her first year. It just seemed to pass me by. I am determined not to let that happen with Amelia. It's interesting to see the difference in myself between the first baby and the second baby. For example with Aleigh when she would wake in the middle of the night I would try to get her back to sleep as soon as possible so I could go back to sleep. Now with Amelia there are times when she wakes me to eat and I simply sit there holding her, just taking it all in, enjoying being a mommy as long as I want. I am actually holding her as I type this at 5am. I do this because I know I will miss these days and as long as I can have my way Amelia will be our last baby. This is my main resolution for 2014. I just want to really live each day to the fullest and even when I am in a stressful situation I want to only look at the positives and laugh or smile, but not get a bad attitude and become ungrateful.

It's funny how some people say they don't believe in New Year's resolutions then turn around and say something they want to change about themselves. Yes most resolutions don't make it past the first month, but really you can make a resolution any day of the year. It is just nice to have a marking point remembering when you started this change and it, in my opinion, keeps you accountable for that change as there is no going back to your old self in 2013 there is only moving foward. I remember just 2 years ago in 2011 I could not wait for 2012 to begin. Yes I moved to Hawaii and had some wonderful times in 2011 but I had lost my first baby, and even though January 1st is just another day for me it was a chance to put some things behind me. Not that I will ever stop missing my first born. January 1st just gave me hope, hope to walk a new path for a new year and hope to be a different person with a more positive outlook. Plus let's face it sometimes we feel like all bad things that happen are grouped together like the old saying "when it rains, it pours" and the new year always seems to be the end or beginning of new life events . So the new year is a time of hope and a time of change for a lot of people. So when is a better time to make a resolution?

Besides for enjoying each day to the max, I am also looking foward to running my first 5k in 2014! Another resolution I have is to get back to my pre-baby weight. Those are both resolutions I have already started in 2013 but the end result WILL happen in 2014. Another event I have coming in 2014 will be another move. I was hoping we could stay in the place we are in for a couple more years as I am very tired of moving but the place we are in is going up for auction. So our options are to either move, or go to the auction and buy this place. Anyways thats another story. So why not have an optimistic start to 2014 and say to yourself I am going to change things for the better, I am going to succeed and make myself a resolution to mark the new year with optimistic beliefs. Don't be one of those people who "don't believe in resolutions because they don't last" that is a very pessimistic way to start your new year. We should always try to better ourselves, there is nothing wrong with that even if you fail at your resolution. This generation is all about trying to be perfect but what happened to welcoming failure and not being scared of it. In your failures you have so many opportunities to once again better yourself. Bring on 2014 and a chance for hope and change!