Annie's 3rd Birthday

Catch up post #2: Annie's 3rd Birthday! Annie's birthday was in March! Grandma Susan came into town and made Annie's day with an amazing unicorn birthday cake - which, almost a year later, she still talks about and remembers vividly. 

We threw a little dual birthday party for Annie and her cousin, Elizabeth, because they are both only 5 days apart. (It was awesome, I visited them in the hospital having their baby while I was still in the hospital with little Annie.) So we had fun with all of their little friends celebrating Annie and Elizabeth turning three. 

This was my first time throwing a kid birthday party - and oh my gosh I loved it. The kids were so happy to do all the things we had planned and had so much fun playing with each other. It was sweet to see Annie and Elizabeth with all of their close little friends from our neighborhood, church, playgroup, etc. It was awesome. We decorated picture frames, frosted/decorated cupcakes, played "pin the horn on the unicorn" and other games and then finished with opening presents. 

This was Annie's awesome birthday present from Grandpa Gene and Mimsy. 

Tyler had fun setting up (and testing) Annie's bike the night before, and Laura had a great time playing with Annie's presents. :)

We love our Annie girl. SO grateful God blessed us with her bright, vibrant, fun little self. She is a trailblazer baby and I'm glad to be figuring out parenthood with her holding my hand. 

Laura's 1st Birthday

So I never posted this, so in the spirit of catching up on all things 2019, here are the pictures from Laura's 1st birthday (back in January - I'm the worst!) As tradition demands - and that I very happily uphold -  we had a little smash cake party. I homemade the cake and frosting - but did buttercream frosting which was a bad idea. That stuff is hard to wash off. But, it was delicious, so it was worth it.

Laura had fun until she realized she was dirty, then this happened:

After that, it was bath time and bedtime. But we had fun celebrating her with some of her cousins. It was a good first birthday for little Lulu. We're so thankful she's in our family. 

We love you little Laura Jane! So glad your sweet, independent, snuggly little self is in our family! 

January 2020 - Sickies and Couple's Trip to Canada

Well, it's official - my family is sick. Booooo.

Last week started off with Lulu catching a little cold, and that slowly spread to our whole family. It just SUCKS. Yesterday was about 90% crying from Laura (I kid you not). I set up some doctors  appointments and we found out the Laura has double ear infections and Annie has mild pneumonia. Our awesome doctor got us hooked up with Antibiotics and put us on our way to recovery! I was kind of a stress mess, because Tyler and I had a couples trip that upcoming weekend. The freaking last thing I wanted was for us to be sick on our trip, and for the girls to be sick for my mom while we were gone. So I went to the doctor, Tyler started taking all of these preventative things (which he now swears by) and we got the girls on a regiment from the doctor.

Poor Lulu. The only time she wasn't crying was when I was holding her (and even then she would still cry half the time). I accepted really fast that it wasn't going to be a productive day for me (even though I was trying to get ready to go out of town that weekend) but it was going to be a mom cuddle day instead. Once I embraced that, it actually was a really sweet day, even though the girls felt so bad.

 On day two with Antibiotics, the girls were in MUCH better moods! AND we had a snow day! After spending an entire weekend and beginning of the week cooped up in the house, we were ready to bundle up for a 15 minute snow adventure. Laura was new to snow, but enjoyed eating it with Annie. :)

 After our snow adventure, I introduced the girls to hot-chocolate. I'm sure you can guess how they felt about it. :)

 Later that day, we went on a short little snow walk (cabin fever is real y'all!). Max was the happiest about this activity!

Nudist, sick babies making the best of it all. :)

 Later in the week, when the girls were feeling a little better, Annie was able to go back to preschool and Laura was enjoying her one on one time with mom again. I'm happy to say Tyler and I were able to go on our trip and my girls were well enough to go to my moms (even though I had to give her a whole medicine run down for them - sorry mom for the high maintenance kiddos! Ha!)

I can't count how many outfit changes Laura goes through in a day with princess outfits and old dance costumes. She's our fashionista I guess. :)

Pre-school 2019

My little Annie is old enough for Preschool now - whaaaaaaat?! We've actually been able to ease into this stage, which has been *so* nice. In August, Annie started preschool with a lady from church -Miss Katie. She has a preschool out of her home, and Annie gets to attend it with her cousin, Lukas. Annie love love loves it.

 Annie loves preschool. The theme of August was farm animals - so if you know Annie, you know that was her jam. She's always excited about school, and she wears her backpack with glee. She hates taking it off in the car for the ride to school. Here she is on her first day of school:

 Happy girl, am I right?? :)

 Her cousin, Lukas, came home with us after preschool for a little bit. They had fun showering Laura with attention (via stickers). I love these babies. And we feel really lucky to have so much family around for our kids to grow up with. It's fun to see that our kids don't just have cousins, but they are getting some strong friendships with their cousins. Miss Katie has told us about how close Annie and Lukas are at school and how they take care of each other, and it warms my heart.

 Well today, a month later, both Laura and Annie are starting Kids Day Out (KDO). It's at a local church and it's a preschool program. It's 2x/week for 4 hours. Annie has been really excited about it, and Laura is my go with the flow baby. Today was the first day, so here are the mandatory first day of school pictures :)

 Y'all, check out these babies! My heart is bursting!

 So you can see above, Laura can barely handle that backpack. I was dying laughing watching her try to walk around with it on, but she didn't want to take it off. She loves it!

 So today at drop-off, I totally cried. I dropped off Annie, and she did great. She jumped right in with no worries. Then I dropped off Laura, and she cried for a minute. The teacher said to go ahead and leave, and that she'll be fine. My friend who works there texted me about two minutes later and said she wasn't crying anymore and she was munching on her cheerios. Well not me. I was still crying in my car on the phone with Tyler. I've been on the fence about sending Laura or not, since she's still so little. And I still might change my mind, but I do know its a fun and good program, and that she'll grow and learn. I guess what I learned today is that I'll be that mom at Kindergarten that cries like a baby on the first day. :)

At the end of the school day when I went to pick them up, it was a roller coaster. I went and got Laura first. Her teacher said she did great, and that she smiled big enough so that they noticed her dimple. She said it was their goal to keep trying to get her to show her dimple throughout the day. They said she played great with the other kids and was a sweetheart.

When I got Annie, she was in a great mood and her teacher said she did awesome. Right after I got her, she wanted to show me one of the indoor playgrounds. After a couple of minutes, I told her time to go. Usually when she doesn't come, I'll say good-bye to her and start walking, and then she'll quickly start to follow. Well today when I did that, she had a total breakdown. I went over to her and she just cried and said "I want my momma". (cue Mommy's heart breaking!). She and Laura both wanted me to carry them, on top of me holding onto their backpacks and take home art. Whenever I would set one down, the other would just collapse onto the floor and cry. They both were exhausted. I finally ended up putting Annie on my shoulders, wearing the backpacks, and then holding onto Laura. Annie cried the whole way to the car just wanting me to "actually" hold her. Once I got to the car and got Laura settled, I held Annie and asked her all about her day. I asked her:

Did you like it? - "yes"
Did you have fun? - "yes"
Did you play games? - "yes"
Do you want to come back here? - "Yes. I want to come back to school tomorrow."

Showing off their backpacks

 I talked to her a bit, and it sounds like she loved her day but she was just exhausted from it. It's hard work playing and learning. So I got the girls home and down for naps quickly and with ease. They were both wanting rest and both napped for about 3 hours.

 Overall, I think it has been a good kick-off into preschool/Kids Day Out (KDO) for these two. I'm glad it's only a couple days a week, because I'm missing my kids. We'll see how long I last at all of this. ;)

Holisticism & Family FHE

Every month my extended family gets together to have a Family Home Evening. We rotate hosting and providing a meal, and my Dad always gives a lesson. His lessons are always amazing (tonight it was about retention and being steadfast with our testimonies in God.) On top of preparing lessons, we also take turns with assignments - ie: games, desserts, music, entertainment, etc. Well tonight, Tyler and I had the assignment of entertainment...

After brainstorming what we wanted to do, we just decided on showing this video. You might want to see it too, so enjoy!