Dancing with the Angels...

This post is for a dear friend (you know who you are:) I didn't get to meet your precious M, but her life has touched me more than you can imagine. Although so many questions of 'why?' still fill my heart, I know that our God is in control and He knows exactly what He is doing. And I know that you will get to dance with her one day...

Dancing with the Angels
by Monk & Neagle

Memories surround me
But sadness has found me
I’d do anything for more time
Never before has someone meant more
And I can’t get you out of my mind
There is so much that I don’t understand
But I know

You’re dancing with the angels
Walking in new life
You’re dancing with the angels
Heaven fills your eyes
Now that you’re dancing with the angels

You had love for your family
Love for all people
Love for the Father, and Son
Your heart will be heard
In you unspoken words
Through generations to come
There is so much that I don’t understand
But I know

You’re dancing with the angels
Walking in new life
You’re dancing with the angels
Heaven fills your eyes
Now that you’re dancing with the angels

We’re only here for such a short time
So I’m gonna stand up
Shout out
And sing Hallelujah
One day I’ll see you again

3rd Annual Girls Weekend!

I had the amazing opportunity to spend this past weekend up north with 5 of my best girlfriends. Over 3 years ago we came together as a group and have been meeting every other Tuesday night since then. We support and encourage each other on how to be better wives, mothers, friends and Godly women. I love these girls and don't know what I would do without them! When our group started only one of us had a child, now just 3 short years later there are 8 kids between us! The babies always join us on our girls weekends so this year we had three sweet little girls, it was a first of all girls. :) (We actually think that next year will be the first year that no babies will come with us - unless of course someone gets pregnant in the next three months! Bri??? haha) We lounged around in our sweats all weekend, played games, watched a movie, soaked in the jacuzzi under the stars, drank lots of wine and made VERY yummy food. It was perfect! Only pictures of our sweet babies were allowed (since we were away from our hubbies and the rest of the world, I don't think any of us looked in the mirror all weekend!) so here are a couple...
Our three precious girls...

Grace kept holding Sienna's hand - so cute!

Lily was a little too far away but Grace tried

I love this picture - future best friends :)

I just had to take this picture - it is a tradition every year to make chicken and veggies on the grill for dinner on Saturday night. Here are our prepared veggies ready to be grilled. My mouth is watering just looking at them...yum!

Our Halloween Festivities

We had such a fun Halloween weekend, here are the highlights...
Decorating Pumpkins

Highlands Fall Festival at Westworld



My sweet little ballerina and butterfly


Practicing ballet moves (I can't wait to put her in dance!)

Sienna trick or treating

Reaping Halloween rewards :)

Adorable pumpkin pj's

Macdonald's Ranch

Yesterday we went to Macdonald's Ranch up in North Scottsdale with our good friends the Anderson's. Allie had so much fun on the hay ride, picking out a pumpkin, petting the animals at the petting zoo and hanging out with her boyfriend Tyler (although the two were not as affectionate as usual, I think Tyler was playing hard to get) Sienna had a great time too chilling in her Baby Bjorn with Matt, there's nothing cuter than seeing a dad carry a baby in one of those :) We had so much fun on our 'family day' and were glad we could spend it with our friends. Here are some of the highlights...
Found a great pumpkin

The Anderson's

The future Mr. and Mrs. :)

Our Family

Petting Zoo

Allie sitting with John (who she has a mild obsession with :)

Sleepy girl

Daddy and his girls

More Baby Stuff!!!

I posted a couple months ago about my first time making some baby things for a boy. Everything I had made up until that point had been for baby girls so it was a bit of a challenge. Well, I just finished my second challenge. My dear friend Shawna is not only having two babies, but she is not finding out the gender of them until they are born! I had so much fun at Joann's picking out the fabric that I was going to use. I didn't want to do the typical yellow and green so I chose to go with chocolate brown and white. I love that color sceme for both boys and girls, plus she's doing an animal theme in the nursery so I thought it fit. I made my usual burp cloths, paci clips and diaper/wipe holder and think they turned out great. Congratulations Shawna!!!

This is my favorite diapers/wipes case I've made so far :)

3 Months Old!

Sienna Faith,
You are three months old already! This past month has been soooo much fun. We went up to your grandparents house again in Prescott and you did great. This time Memaw and Dodad were there too so you definitely got loved on a lot.

You are getting so incredibly strong. You completely hold your head up on your own, even when we pick you up from the ground, we really don't have to support your head. You are actually really good at tummy time and (somewhat) enjoy it. You definitely stay happy for longer than your sister did, you love to just lay there and look around. AND, you have started to roll over from your tummy to your back! I thought it was a fluke the first time you did it but you have done it many, many times since then. It's definitely not a regular thing yet but I know you'll get there soon.

One of your favorite things to do now is lay on your activity mat and look at all the hanging toys. You haven't tried to grab them yet but you kick your feet and smile like crazy when you are on it.

Sleeping is still a challenge but you are much, much better than before. You are now taking mostly all of your naps in your crib (occasionally you will still take your fourth nap in my moby wrap though). But, I swear you have an internal alarm clock that wakes you up after exactly one hour because that's the longest you will sleep. Oh well, I know it will get better soon and I hate to break it to you but next month we are going to start sleep training boot camp! Hopefully it will help you learn to fall asleep on your own because I do have to rock you to sleep and hopefully you will sleep longer. We will see! You do perfect at night though. About half the time you will sleep through the night (12 hours) and half the time you wake up once to eat, I can't complain.

You are smiling and cooing like crazy which I LOOOOVE! Everytime I look at your sweet face I just melt. You are just so darn cute! And it is even better when you smile at your big sister, which you do EVERY time you see her. It's the best and I love that you have a sister to grow up with.

I still can't believe that you are my daughter and that you are here! I am in awe of the ways that God has blessed me!

Was My Baby Really This Small???

Over the weekend I unpacked all of Allie's old 6-12 month clothes for Sienna. It was a little bitter-sweet because it brought back so many memories of Allie wearing specific things, but also made me so excited that now Sienna will be wearing them too. And then it was also so bitter-sweet to pack away Sienna's 0-6 month clothes. She may be our last girl so I may never unpack them again. :( Even though Sienna was in newborn clothes for like a minute, I came across these pajamas that she wore her first night at home. I couldn't believe how little they were. Sienna happened to be next to me as I was doing all of this and I couldn't help but snap a picture. I just can't believe how much she has grown in just 3 short months!!!

Potty Training Success!!!

Almost two weeks ago we began our first venture into the potty training world. I have to say that this phase of parenting was certainly not my favorite, however, I'm glad we persevered because we officially have one child out of diapers! We decided to do the boot camp type of potty training. I really wanted to get it over with and did not want it to drag on for weeks or months. I read a lot, and just kind of took bits and pieces of what I found to use. The day before we started, Allie and I took a special trip to Target together. I let her pick out panties, and pull-ups and m&m's. We talked about it all day long that she was going to go in the big girl potty starting the next day, she was sooooo excited. Then when she woke up on Sunday, we went all around the house putting her diapers in a garbage bag to 'throw away'. We put panties on her and that was it. We told her she would get one m&m for pee and two m&m's for poo and everytime she went, we drew a heart on her hand (she loves stamps but since I didn't have one at home, I just drew a heart on her hand with a marker) Then came the rough part. I hate comparing my daughter to a dog but it was seriously like potty training a puppy. There were sooooo many accidents, big and small. But looking back, Allie has been going potty in her diaper for 2 1/4 years without even having to think about it, so obviously it takes some time for kids to even figure out that they have the capability to hold it. It took four days of taking her to the potty, going, not going, accidents, m&m's, washing panties, washing the floor, TONS of hearts, etc. But I'm so happy to report that after that fourth day, she has not had ONE accident!!! We have left the house several times and she was even out with my mom and Matt's mom yesterday for about 5 hours and just did great! She does wear a pull up ONLY for naps and at night but the past couple of days she has woken up completely dry so I may end the pull ups soon. We took away all of the rewards too simply because we didn't feel like she needed them any more and she did totally fine. I'm so proud of my grown up girl!!! I do look forward to the day where we are COMPLETELY rid of diapers...in about 5 years, Ugh!!! :)

Resemblance???

When Allie was a newborn, everyone said that she looked like me. Comparing her to my baby pictures was so much fun because we really did look so much alike. Then as Allie got older, everyone started to say she looked like Matt. Now I think that she is such a perfect combination of the two of us (however Matt and I actually look quite a bit alike so this isn't too much of a surprise). Now with Sienna looking so much like Allie, I'm so interested to see who she is going to take after as she grows. I was again looking at some of my baby pictures and looking at Sienna's pictures and I found the two photos below. I couldn't believe how similar they are. Aside from the obvious 29 year old picture (yikes!), if they were both the same quality, I think it could be impossible to tell who is who!

 

Time Out

Notice anything odd about this picture?

No, it's not just a picture of our front door. Allie's baby is serving some time in time out. :)


A couple of weeks ago we have had to start time out's with Allie. I'm really surprised it took us this long to do it but to be honest, we are blessed with a very obedient and good listening little girl. But lately she's started getting a little sassy with us. She would ask for something and then if we told her no, she would YELL it, definitely not acceptable behavior. Matt and I talked and decided that our time out spot would be by the front door. We figured it was a pretty boring spot, and everywhere we go usually has some sort of door so we thought it would be a universal spot that she could associate with a time out if we needed to send her there when we weren't at home. I wish we had our video camera the first time she had to go. She had a complete and utter melt down! It's really sad how comical Matt and I thought it was but it was straight out of a movie. She screamed like I have never heard her scream before, sprawled out on the ground and just bawled. But boy did it work!!! Matt and I agreed that for the most part with our disciplining, we would give her one warning (unless she does something that could cause her or someone else harm) and if she did it again, she would have to go to time out. Now when we give her a warning for yelling, which is so rare now, she'll whisper 'No time out mama'. She's only had to go once or twice after her warning, it's been great. And now I randomly find Allie's toys in the corner by our front door. When I ask her why her toy is there she tells me that they are in time out, it's so funny. So far her baby, Elmo and Mickey Mouse have all spent time in time out. I sure hope she doesn't try and send me there!