language BOOM (written 4/29)

Jake's vocabulary has exploded, and it is so, SO fun to hear what he has to say.  His new thing lately has been saying "bye bye" to everything.  Literally everything.  Bye to bugs, bye to church, by to his shoes when they come off.  He even said bye to his poop when we were changing his diaper yesterday, which I definitely chuckled about.  Speaking and understanding came a little slower and with more difficulty to Jake than the average kid, so his full sentences, new words,  and expressing emotions has been extra fun for me and Andrew.

We often get a chuckle out of what Jake has to say, but one of my favorites so far has been Jake telling us his shirts are broken now that it's warm enough for short sleeves.  He does it every time, and I always smile :)

Understanding more and being able to express what he wants has made a HUGE difference in Jake's temperament, and I think we're starting to say "bye bye" to the terrible 2's...at least a little.  He's thrown a lot less tantrums and can tell us when he needs something rather than crying until we guess what he wants.  I get so proud when he points things out or counts to 5 all by himself.  Having a little boy can be challenging, and some moments I want to pull my hair out, but it is awesome.  Completely and indescribably amazing.  And more fun than I ever imagined.  Parenting, especially a little boy as fun and energetic and goofy as Jake, has been truly joyous!

7 months (written 4/29)

I can't believe another month has flown by.  McKenna is growing so fast!  In the last month she has become a lot more fiery.  She is less laid back than I originally thought, but she is still as sweet as can be.  She lets us know when she wants to eat and objects to some of what we try to feed her.  She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to tell us when we're doing something wrong.  She loves to be held and will sometimes cry quite loudly if we aren't obliging.  It makes tasks like dinner, changing Jake, or really doing anything with 2 hands a little challenging. That's not all the time, though.  Sometimes she is thrilled to just sit and watch what's going on around her.

McKenna is now a master sitter.  She (almost) never falls anymore and she enjoys playing on a blanket with some toys (at least for short periods).  Jake has enjoyed this too, and often brings her toys if she starts to get fussy, although he's been known to take what she's playing with too.

McKenna loves food.  Our pediatrician said that around 6 months babies often declare themselves as "milk babies" or "food babies."  McKenna has definitely declared "food baby."  She goes crazy when we eat, although she really can't have anything aside from jarred baby food and yogurt.  She loves eating, but she hasn't quite figured it out yet.  Jake ate fine right from the beginning, so it's been fun (and sometimes quite comical) to see her try and figure it out.  She has no idea what to do with that active tongue of hers, but I feel like she is getting better at swallowing her food, which really improves her mood.  She likes yogurt quite a bit, and has been doing well with lots of new fruits and vegetables (all pureed, of course).

McKenna is an awesome night-time sleeper.  She's been going to bed around 9:30pm and not getting up until about 10am.  Andrew does go in to feed her a bottle before he leaves for school around 7, but that doesn't seem to even wake her up.  She drinks her milk best when she's asleep these days anyway, so it works out great.  She's been having 4 bottles a day, plus yogurt in the morning and a vegetable in the evening. Her naps are so/so and not nearly as regular as Jake's were, but she usually sleeps twice a day, once for 2 hours and once for 30 min to an hour.  She wakes up incredibly happy and makes it obvious by whining when she's ready for her crib, which is the only place she'll happily sleep these days.  She loves her bed!

McKenna is feisty and demanding at times, but she is as cute and sweet as can be.  She loves being held, being tossed in the air, hanging upside down, walking around in someones arms, being sung to, anything electronic, our dog, and attention.  Her favorite toy is a stuffed bunny from Kim and Darrell, but she's happy to chew on whatever she can get into her mouth.  She is great at picking things up and is able to get way more than we ever think is within her reaching range.  She still has no teeth, but her gummy grin is adorable.  Her eyes haven't quite picked a color yet- some days we think they're blue, then brown, then green, but mostly we guess they are gray.  She is wearing 6-9 and 9 month clothing, but her 0-3 month shoes are still too big- at least in length.  Her tiny feet are so chubby it's crazy, and adorable.  I love this little girl, and being her mom is the best!

Wedded Bliss x 5 years! (written 4/30)

April 25th, Andrew and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary!

It's hard to believe it has already been 5 years, but it's also hard to believe we've only been married that long- it seems like forever, in a good great way.  I feel like scenes from our life belong in a chick-flick and that no one could possibly love their spouse more than we love each other. It's great!

Even though we have a lot of love to celebrate, we don't have a lot of money to celebrate with.  We used a gift card to go to Chili's Friday, our actual anniversary.  The kids were so needy and whiny that we didn't even enjoy it, so Saturday our friends took the kids for a couple of hours and Andrew and I used another gift card for Olive Garden.  I probably liked the food better at Chili's, but I definitely enjoyed the food and the experience better day 2, sans kids.  I love them and they are probably the biggest part of our 5 years together, but sheesh.  They certainly made the evening less than romantic :)

I was thinking about all that we've done the past 5 years, and it has been quite the ride together.

5 fun-filled years
4 apartments (including a long-term hotel for an internship a couple summer's ago)
3 degrees (a BS for me and a BS and MS for Andrew- only 1 1/2 more years and he'll have a Ph.D too, wahoo!)
2 darling children and
1 beautiful life together with so much love

I'm the luckiest.  Seriously.  The absolute luckiest!

Sibling Love (written 4/29)

Jake ignored McKenna for the most part her first 5 or so months, but now that she sits by herself and giggles when he shows off, he's become much more interested in his little sister.

Jake loves bouncing McKenna on his bed- we lay her at the top and he jumps at the bottom, which gets her bouncing a little too.  It's pretty cute to watch them giggle together.

Jake and McKenna took their first bath together yesterday.  McKenna was splashing up a storm, but Jake was sweet and never got her too bad.  He was really careful no to knock her over, and she loved watching him play with his bath toys.

McKenna enjoys her exersaucer so much more when Jake is playing with it also.  She also likes when he walks around spinning it in circles.

Little Miss McKenna doesn't smile for anyone as much as she smiles for her big brother- she's lucky to have Jake, who has been treating her so much better than we ever anticipated.  I'm proud of my energetic little guy and I love seeing their relationship blossom!

Bye Bye Binkie (written 4/29)

When Jake was 18 months, the pediatrician said it was time to say goodbye to the pacifier.  Andrew and I told him what was going on, but he clearly had no idea.  It was an awful 8 days for all 3 of us, and after looking at the American Dental Association statement on binkies and the American Pediatric Association's website, I decided it definitely was not worth pulling the plug.  We gave his binkie back and he started sleeping through the night again and was back to his old, happy self.

Jake is now 2 years plus a few months and has a much better understanding of what we say.  We decided it's time to say bye to the binkie a couple of weeks ago, and the transition has been SO much better this time around.  This might not be our best parenting move, but for a couple of days I'd ask him if he wanted his binkie or the iPad for nap time.  He'd unfailingly pick the iPad and had no issues falling to sleep binkie-less.  So we experiemented for a night without his paci, and he ended up in our bed sleeping on top of Andrew, but he slept.  And we slept.  And it wasn't THAT bad!

The day after our overnight experiment we took Jake's binkie to the toy store and told him he could have a toy instead of his beloved pacifier.  We found a train that he seemed really interested in, and sure enough he set his binkie down right in the aisle and never looked back.  He hasn't asked for it and has slept at least decently well every night.

Now we have to get him off the iPad, because a couple of nights we've woken up at 1am and he's still been awake playing on the darn thing- that's 4+ hours after bedtime!  His brain's going to turn to mush if we're not careful!  We figured out how to have it stop working after certain amounts of time, so starting tonight we're going to work back to him just having a few minutes before falling asleep.  I'm sure that'll be much easier and happier than just pulling his paci cold turkey, although I'm certain he's going to be crazy mad when it turns off.  Good thing he and McKenna don't share rooms! (Update July 1: he's falling asleep just fine without it and has been for several weeks now- phew!)

I'm so proud of my cute little boy and the progress he's made with his language development.  He understood the situation and literally said "bye bye binkie."  Hopefully we won't have to say "hello braces" for letting him use it while he slept until he was almost 2 1/2 :)

Easter 2014

It was fun to celebrate Easter for the first time with McKenna, remembering the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  What a beautiful holiday!

We spent time with our family at my parents' house in Wadsworth.  We had a nice time at church and a great dinner.  Unfortunately the pictures weren't all that beautiful (and we forgot Jake's church shoes), but it was a wonderful day.

McKenna is 6 Months

6 months

Just born- what a difference half a year can make!

I honestly can't believe my baby girl is half way to 1!  How did that happen so fast?  It's interesting how much faster it has gone with her than it did with Jake.  I think it's because I was pretty miserable working with Jake and now I have 2 kids to chase after- which seems to make time fly even faster.

helping with laundry

McKenna is the sweetest little girl.  She smiles incredibly easily, although most easily for Jake.  She loves watching him, although Jake usually ignores her completely.  He's started to like to show off for her a little here and there, which is really cute.  I'm just grateful he doesn't bug her too much, which I worried about a lot before she was born.  She really likes any other kids, and readily smiles at her own reflection.

she loves oranges!

In the midst of RSV- which was miserable and lasted about 3 weeks.  Poor thing!

McKenna is really interested in her tongue.  If she's happy, she's not only smiling, but also sticking her tongue out most of the time.  She loves licking things and her toys are usually soaked.  Unfortunately she now sticks her tongue out in hopes that the dog will lick it.  She doesn't quite get how gross that is yet, but Jake did the same thing and he survived.  Hopefully this phase will pass quickly!

there's her tongue- again :)

Our little miss now can roll both directions- tummy to back and back to tummy.  She only sleeps on her side or stomach these days and flips almost immediately when we lay her down in her crib. 

check out that chubby hand

McKenna is an awesome sleeper.  We feed her her last bottle around 10:30pm.  Andrew wakes her up to feed her before heading off to school around 7am, and then I often won't hear a peep from her until close to 11am.  We need to work on moving her last bottle to earlier, but it's nice to have some time with just Jake in the morning so he doesn't feel left out or replaced.  We also get some time with just McKenna when Jake goes to bed, which is a lot more calm and quiet than when he's awake and wreaking havoc.  After she wakes up at 11, McKenna stays awake until about 1pm and then naps until 3pm.  She's awake most of the evening with no scheduled naps, but if we put her in the car she'll fall asleep, and sometimes she'll fall asleep being held or laying on her play mat. 

McKenna is taking 5 bottles a day, about 5 ounces each.  She's also started in on solids, if baby food puree can be considered "solid."  She's a lot pickier than her brother was, but she does enjoy pears and apple/blueberry combo.  She'll tolerate sweet potatoes, but she most spits out everything else.  She won't eat jarred bananas, but she does like the mesh strainer bag with a ripe banana inside. (The mesh bag is a cool little contraption that allows her to get small amounts of fruit/vegetables out by sucking on and chewing a small mesh bag with a handle that Andrew and I can hold on to.)  She loves sucking on orange slices and is always trying to get food off of our forks when we eat dinner with her on our laps.  McKenna has no teeth yet, but she does seem to be teething.  I'm guessing pretty soon here one will come popping through.

McKenna is a daddy's girl.  She lights up for Andrew and will often stop fussing for only him.  It's sweet to see the daddy/daughter bonding and I'm really grateful she has such an amazing father.

My top few words to describe McKenna are:
sweet
smiley
fun
curious
thoughtful

Andrew's top words to describe her are:
fun
smiley
curious
sweet
cuddly

(I wrote my list and Andrew came up with those words without knowing what I said- clearly we are on the same page and she truly is a sweetie!)

She really is an amazing little girl and we feel so blessed to have her in our family.  My heart has grown so much these past 6 months as I've watched her learn and grow.  I'm so grateful for my sweet little girl!