Sisters

Eliana and Alexis have finally started to "play" together. Alexis always wants to be by Ellie and play with her toys. As I've mentioned before Ellie really hasn't wanted anything to do with her. She recently started showing some interest in Alexis and I love it. When we go into get Eliana up in the morning she clears out a spot in her bed and tells me to put Lexie in. She tries to teach her how to clap and even has given her her blanket. That is a really big deal for Ellie. Her blankets are very precious and she never shares them. Every morning this happens and Lexie grins from ear to ear as Ellie plays with her. She has even started sharing her toys. When I put Lexie down I always give her her container of toys and see picks things out and plays with them. Ellie has stared bringing other toys over and dumps them around Lexie and the two of tem play. I love to watch this interaction between them. It is so sweet.

Daddy's Girls

My girls are such Daddy's girls. I love to watch them interact and the smiles they get on their faces when they see him are priceless.

Do They Look Alike?

I was flipping through a scrapbook to day and found a picture of my Nephew (hope you don't mind Melissa) I was blown away when I looked at it and couldn't believe the resemblance between him and Lexie. To me they look so much alike in these pictures. I've always thought Lexie looked like some of his baby pictures. What do you think?
Lexie 7 months

Carson 6 months (three years ago)

What is even funnier is that they are sitting in the exact same spot on my parents living room floor.

Ellie Bellie

I realized there hasn't been many posts about Ellie lately. Lexie has kinda taken over the blog. Maybe that is beacuse right now Lexie is my sweet and peaceful child and Ellie is my defient and high energy child. That will switch soon I'm sure they seem to take turns being the "good" one. I love Ellie at this age and one of my favorite things is doing her hair and putting in cute hairbows, which she finally leaves in her hair. Her hair is finally long enough to wear in a ponytail and I had to atke of picture of it beacuse she looks so cute!



This picture I feel really captures her attitutde lately. I feel like she has that "are you talking to me" look.

The Perfect Family Night

With Nick being out on strike he is working back at his old job. That means a normal shift and he is home for dinner and the night. I have to admit I absolutely love this and for this reason I am enjoying him being on strike. I love being a "normal" family that has dinner together and spends the evening together. I think the girls are loving it just has much as me. We had our first true family night this week. We went to the park to play soccer but the soccer fields were being used so we decided to go walk down by the river. Ellie has never been to a river before so we thought she would enjoy it. Since I thought we were only going to play soccer I didn't bring my camera, I know wish I had. We walked along the dirt path looking for a spot that we could navigate down with two little kids. It was such a sweet sight to walk behind my husband and daughter and see them holding hands. We eventually found a spot where we had to walk down a steep, but short hill and climb over a fallen tree. Can you just picture me with Lexie in the Bjorn and a soccer ball in one hand trying to get down to the river. To make it better I was also wearing flip flops. Ellie and Nick continued holding hands and walked all around the river bed. Ellie of course had to play in the mud and get all dirty. Nick I know was worried about what I would say because she was wearing a new white shirt and she wiped dirt down the front of it. When we were done Nick allwoed her to walk up the hill herself, of course he still had ahold of her. She was so excited and loved every minute of this. She found a place on the side of the hill that was rather steep but she wanted to climb up it. I could tell Nick was exhautsed and just wanted to go, but he walked up with her and told her to see how far she go. She was grinning so big and was so excited that she got to do this herself. She is getting to be such a big girl. We came home and of course had baths and then read some stories out of Ellie's "My First Book of Mormon" (Thanks Mike and Melissa!) It was a simple night but it was spent together and it was awesome. Thanks Nick for bearing with us and letting your little girl explore.

Markham Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Black and white photographs - Family photo sharing

Markham Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family tree research - Family pictures

It's a mystery.

Just a random thought of mine today. Why do all my shirts have small holes in the same place? I used to think it was from my belt. I don't wear it anymore and yet I contiue to get holes in my new clothes. I can't figure out way, it is a true mystery.

sTORI Telling

I love to read but haven't much of a chance to do any reading since Lexie was born. I don't really like to read educational books, or serious books, or anything that makes me really have to think. I love to read children's books, love stories by Nicholas Sparks. When I read I want it to be an easy read that I can just relax and not think about. I just finished reading sTORI Telling by Tori Spelling. I thought it was a great book. Now of course you have to be a fan of hers to enjoy a book all about her and her life. It was interesting to me and I loved reading about her and Dean falling in love and their wedding. I'm a hopeless romantic at heart. In the very end of the book she says, "We are not defined by the family into which we are born, but the one we choose to create. We are not born, we become." I just loved that. I love the thought and the fact that no matter how life starts for us we have the ability to change it. ( Not that I have any complaints about the family I was raised in or the way I was raised) We control our own lives and we decide who we will become. Not everyone grew up like her obviously. Not everyone wants to have a different life for their family than the one they were given as a child. But isn't it great that we can make those changes if we feel it necessary. I found her life so intriguing. Maybe because it so completely different than mine. It goes to show that money really doesn't bring happiness.

New Pictures

When the girls cousin Kenidee was visiting Grandma JuJu took them to get pictures taken. Just wanted to share what we got.

7 months!

I can't believe Alexis is already 7 months old. The time has flown by. She is really starting be a good baby. She is so sweet and loves to snuggle with me. I absolutely love it! She is interested in everything that is going on. Especially if it involves Ellie. She loves Ellie! She is rolling all over the place and gets into Ellie's toys, which really makes Ellie mad. Her favorite toys are Ellie's snap and style babies. They also happen to be Ellie's favorite toys, it is not a good mix. Alexis is always being told no and having toys snatched away from her. She doesn't seem to mind, yet. Her favorite thing to do, besides eat, is take a bath. She kicks and kicks and smiles the whole time. She laughs when I wash her and cries when I take her out. I wish I could say that the sleeping situation is improving but it isn't. She is exhausting me. She wakes up to eat now twice a night, she is a little porker. She loves to eat and is very vocal about it. She makes all kinds of noise in between bites. I can't get the spoon in her mouth fast enough. She hasn't found anything she doesn't like. I don't know exactly how much she weighs but I'm guessing it should be around 13 pounds. She is a complet Mommy's girl and I wouldn't have it any other way!

You fed her what?

It is a good thing that I am not a parent who is overly worried about what other people feed my children.My Dad was holding Lexie the other day and he called me over. I came out of the kitchen and saw Lexie laying on my Dads legs licking a smarty. She ate most of it and loved it. My Grandma let her lick a piece of pizza. Papa (Nicks dad) let her lick tortilla chips and was feeding her a plum the other day. I have to admit watching her suck on the plum was pretty darn cute, she whined every time he took it out of her mouth. My Mom made Ellie some chocolate pudding a few weeks ago and they sat down to eat it with a can of whipped cream. I was sitting at the computer and turn around to see my Mom spraying whip cream into Ellie's mouth. Ellie thought it was a fantastic treat. You can tell how much I cared about what they were being feed. My first reaction was to get a camera!

Scars

Today was one of those days. You the kind when you want to give your kids away to the first taker? Lexie was needy, Ellie was crabby, and nap time couldn't have lasted long enough. I was excited for bath time because that meant bed was next and peace and quite for me. I was getting my girls ready for the bath and for some reason their scars really stuck out today. It made me change my way of thinking. For those of you who don't know both my girls were born early and spent time in the NICU. They have scars from their PICC lines, IVs and such. Ellie has five of them and Lexie has one. These scars made me think about all that my girls have been through. The odds they have overcome. They are perfect in every way. They had no issues while they were in the NICU and have had no long term effects this far from their small size or prematurity. It makes me think back to being pregnant with them both and being told that there is no way to tell if they would be "normal" or even make it to birth. I sit here crying while I'm typing because my girls are miracles. They have overcome and defied all the odds. I take it for granted almost daily that have them. Today as I looked at those scars I became so filled with love and gratitude to my Heavenly Father for blessing me with these two very special spirits. My attitude completely changed and suddenly I didn't want to put my girls to bed. I wanted to hold them a little longer, give them a few more kisses and remind them how much I love them.
Ellie



Lexie

Day 3 = Failure

I've been trying to get my girls to start sleeping together in their room. I decided I am tired of having Alexis in my room and she has a nice crib in her room that needs to be used. Since I'm alone when it's bed time I have been putting this off. Everyone tells me that their kids never had a problem they slept through each other right from the start. Not my girls! Day one I put them down together hoping they would just fall asleep. After 45 min they were not asleep and Lexie of course was screaming. I thought I'd change my plan and start putting Lexie down a little earlier than usual and Ellie down slightly later. I had success with Lexie she fell asleep without a sound. So it was Ellie's turn, she got into bed and proceeded to throw herself around and hit her head. This resulted in screaming which of course woke and Lexie and you guessed it she also started screaming. We took a few days off and tonight I tried again. Lexie went down again with no problems (which is amazing that she finally does that!) I let Ellie have a snack, watch Little Einsteins, call Nanny and snuggle on the couch with me. Of course all in an effort to get her to go to bed quietly. She put up a little fuss but surprisingly Lexie didn't wake up. Ellie continued to talk for the next 30 min. She played with her aquarium and talked, sang, bounced around her crib. Lexie didn't make a peep. I was starting to get a little worried about Lexie and was entertaining crazy thoughts in my head about her being smashed against the bumpers and suffocated so I (against my better judgement) peaked in the room. She was very peacefully sleeping and very much alive. (Of course I realize this is silly to think she was not breathing, but if I didn't check and something was wrong... I would never forgive myself) Ellie who was still not asleep got up for a few minutes to get more milk and then went back to bed were she proceeded to wake up Lexie. Maybe I should consider it a success we made it an hour and a half before Lexie was hysterical. Maybe tomorrow will be better. But I doubt it day four will probably be a failure as well. One day this will work, that's what I keep telling myself although I'm sure I really believe it.


In Lexie's crib.