The past month

Well, so much for updating weekly haha...it's now been a month.

Addy:

• has started crawling in earnest. That girl sure can move!  
• started pulling herself up to standing...I'm not ready for her to walk yet! She is growing up way too fast!
• started eating baby food again! She had a couple of times where she puked after trying a new food, so I think she associated the purees with being sick.  But after trying and trying she'll finally eat them!  So far she's had pears, sweet potatoes, and corn.  And boy does she love her pears!
• HATED Santa Claus haha
• babbles quite a bit (especially mamama.... =) )
• likes to pull Emmett's hair
• is 17 lbs 6 oz (38%) and 26" (11%)...she sure is a tiny little thing! Especially compared to Emmett...he was in 18 month clothes at 9 month and she's barely in 6-9 month clothes lol.

Emmett:

• has already lost one of his tubes and the other is on its way out (the doctor called him an overachiever; apparently they normally don't come out for another 4-5 months)
• loves the "what does the fox say" video (he says 'ah' for fox) and the little minion 'shorts' on youtube
• has been asking for "the wise man and the foolish man" song
• will point to the sky and say "blue"
• pointed to Dairy Queen when we drove by and said "nomnomnom" (he remembered that we'd gone there for ice cream before, even though it had been a couple months since we last went and we hardly ever go! What a smart cookie!)
• LOVES yogurt (he says "yo" when he wants some haha)
• likes Santa unless you try and have him sit on Santa's lap

Myaela:

• got a new sewing machine =)  It's a refurbished Bernina and I love it! Hopefully it'll be the last machine I ever have to buy!
• is keeping busy watching two other little boys a few days a week as well as Emmett and Addy

Jeremy:

• is working lots of hours; he hasn't had a full day off (except Sunday) in a month.  We're looking forward to him finishing up this next round of training so he can have a full day off again and we can get some projects done around the house.

 Addy's first Thanksgiving...she LOVED the sweet potatoes!

 Addy's funny face she's been making...sorry about the poor quality!

 Emmett learned he can suction small cups onto his face

 Emmett was nice enough to put this amazing hat (bowl) on Addy's head while she was crawling around

 The kids before church one Sunday

 Another funny face of Addy's

Bathtime fun

 She started crying in earnest right after this photo

For wanting to see Santa, this kid sure didn't want to sit on his lap!  This was AFTER Santa bribed him with a candy cane! (and I was only standing like 2 feet away when the kids were on his lap!)

I feel like our life isn't really interesting enough to really have enough to update weekly.  But I'm going to attempt it anyway.

Some highlights of this week:

• we went to visit Great Grandma Cress this weekend.  We sure enjoyed seeing her.  Emmett enjoyed drawing on almost every page of her notebook and matching her animal cards.  Addy enjoyed crawling around and crying for mama.
• Emmett had a fever and was complaining about his ear Wednesday night and Thursday.  But after using his ear drops for a few days, it seems to have cleared up.  Yay for avoiding a visit to the dr.
• It has been windy and gloomy here lately.  Fall/winter is definitely here.  The nice thing about the wind though is it blows all the leaves in our front yard away, so we haven't had to rake it yet!  We will be tackling the back yard leaves tomorrow though.
• Emmett pulled EVERY SINGLE TOY out in Addy's room the other day.  Both kids were in there playing while I was wrapping up making dinner, and when I came in afterwards, Emmett had pulled all the toys out of the bins in the closet.  Then, while I was nursing Addy, he proceeded to empty out the toy box too.  But he did help me clean it back up.  Boys will be boys, I guess.
• Addy is much closer to actual crawling.  She now does a mix of crawling and inchworming. I'm trying to keep an eye on her to see if she "limps" while crawling...at her last visit the dr. mentioned that she has asymmetrical skin folds that could indicate hip dysplasia and he wanted to keep an eye on it to see if she had any other signs as well.  I'm really hoping her hips are fine.
• Emmett did really well at his speech visitation on Friday (the one where they come to our house). The lady was pretty surprised that he sat for 24 minutes straight doing what she wanted him to do.  He has definitely been progressing...I'm not sure if it's because he's more used to her now, if he's more used to what she expects when she comes, if he's more comfortable/relaxed because we're more settled now (with the addition of Addy, moving, etc), or what, but it has been awesome to see.
• We tried pumpkin chili (I made some tweaks based on comments below the actual recipe).  And it was pretty dang good.  Although it gets kind of old after eating it for 3+ days...
• We tried a cabbage casserole recipe (with a few slight modifications).  It was really good.  I'm looking forward to more leftovers tomorrow.

Well, I'm feeling too lazy at the moment to upload pics from my phone, but I'll try to add some more next week.

Whoops!

It has been WAY too long since I last updated!  We moved, then didn't have internet, then updating seemed like a daunting task so I was putting it off... I'll try to do some short posts over the next little while to catch up more but here's a very brief update:

Mid July we bought a house and moved in.  It was a CRAZY week.  We moved on the 11th and my brother's wedding reception was on the 13th.  At my parents house.  Where we just moved from.  And all sorts of family was coming into town for it.

 

 The street view

 

 Backyard view from the sliding door

 More of the backyard

 The kitchen

 The living room/dining room

The living room from another angle (ignore the scantily clad Little Man...we were attempting potty training, which didn't work)

We are loving having our own place!  Overall, there wasn't a ton of work that NEEDED to be done, but there are always projects of stuff we'd like to change.  We've been slowly working on getting the most important ones done.  We are almost done hanging pictures lol. And then comes the inevitable re-evaluation of where things are to see if we can make them make more sense.  But we're getting settled in and we LOVE our new ward.

Jeremy is loving his job at Gesa.  He switched branches and now only works 5 minutes from where we live, which is really nice.  He's been coming home to eat lunch with us lately, which has been a lot of fun. (And it saves me the trouble of having to make him a lunch to take to work lol).

I started watching a couple of boys in September.  Pax is 4 and Emmett (baby Emmett, lol) is a month younger than Addy.  They keep me on my toes!  It has been really nice to be able to supplement our income a bit and I love that it's only 2-3 days a week so I still have free days where I can run errands or do doctor appointments or whatever.

Emmett started seeing a speech therapist.  Well, actually, he sees a speech therapist once a week at the hospital outpatient therapy place and then every other week someone from the school district comes to work with him.  Since starting therapy, his speech has been improving, especially over the past month.  He's now willing to attempt more words and is, I think, understanding that verbal communication is a good thing and will help him get what he wants faster than having me guess what he wants.

Both kids got sick a few weeks ago.  Emmett got croup.  He was super miserable.  I felt so bad for him!  I don't think Addy got croup, thank goodness, but she was pretty stuffy and had a bit of a cough too.  Thankfully, both kids are doing much better!

Emmett moved up to a toddler bed, which has really thrown night time out of whack.  He kept coming out of his room since he didn't have a crib keeping him in, so we switched the handle around so we could lock him in until he went to sleep.  He had finally settled down just before he got sick, and now we're having to create habits all over again.  Hopefully he'll get back in the swing of things soon.  These middle of the night wakings are killing me!  Way to flash back to newborn stage....there are definitely things I DON'T miss about that! ;)

Addy has started getting around.  It's not quite crawling yet...I call it "inch worming" because she'll get up on her hands and knees, lunge forward on her belly, and repeat the process to get where she wants.  It's super cute.  I don't think true crawling is too far away...I guess nothing is safe again!

The kids were both tigers for Halloween.  I lucked out and was able to find them both tiger costumes at two different places (Emmett's a yard sale and Addy's at a thrift shop).  Yay for not paying full price! =D

I seriously had the hardest time trying to get them both still for a picture!  This is one of the FEW clear ones.  I love the cheesy smile on Emmett's face.  And notice his cherished package of m&m's haha

Well, I think that's about it for BIG updates.  Like I said, hopefully I'll be able to find time soon to get on and do more specific updates and such.  If not, I'll at least try to update better from here on out.  =)  I'll leave you with a few more cute pictures of the kids.

Goings on

Well, we've been busy in the past few months.  Adjusting to life with 2 kids and having time to blog took a while.  Here's a recap:

Jeremy was laid off 5 days before Adelynn was born.  We knew it was coming and it actually worked out really well since she came 3 weeks early.  Then he worked for my aunt and uncle's cropdusting business for a few weeks while he looked for a job.  He had been putting in applications for jobs and rarely getting interviews; well, he had 2 interviews in a week for jobs at 2 different places.  And one of the places had him come in THAT DAY for a second interview, the next day for a third interview, and the day after that to do background check stuff.  Things actually ended up in such a way that he was offered both jobs.  I guess when it rains, it pours! ;)

So at the beginning of May, Jeremy started working at Gesa Credit Union as a member service representative.  Basically, he opens/closes accounts, helps members with car and small personal loans, helps with home equity lines of credit, etc.  It's a good thing he learned Spanish on his mission, because he's speaking it all day every day!  He really enjoys his job and is glad that his Spanish is coming back quickly!

We are also in the process of buying a house!  If all goes well, we should be moving in sometime the first week of July!  It's a cute little house with a fenced back yard for the kids to play in and some great shade trees.

3 Months!

Addy is now 3 months old.  It is hard to believe she's been with our family for 3 months already.  It feels like she's been here forever and yet like she's still brand new.  It's crazy!

One of the things I've been glad we purchased this time around was a Rock n Play.  That has seriously been amazing; it's smaller and more portable than a traditional bassinet, and since it's inclined, we can put her in it and let her use it as a chair (before she was able to sit up in her Bumbo.) It's one of my favorite baby gear items. ;)

This past month:

• Addy has started sitting in her Bumbo and she LOVES it!
• Addy can definitely tell who mom, dad, and brother are, and she looks at us with such love...it just melts my heart completely.
• she loves to sit in her Bumbo and watch her big brother play
• she will follow you with her eyes
• she will put weight on her feet to stand up for a minute or so
• she moves her arms and legs a lot!
• she is sleeping through the night! =D I am so excited about this one!
• she loves to smile and interact with you
• she will bat at toys in her play gym (sometimes) but would rather sit up in her Bumbo usually
• sometimes we can't tell if she's whining or just cooing loudly
• she is our rootin', tootin' little girl!
• she grabbed a rattle for the first time on her own
• she will have long conversations with you

 My sweet sleepy girl

 Outside in the shade

 This is her pouty face

 In the Bumbo

 Wearing the dress my great grandma made me

 I sure love this sweet little girl!

2 Months

Her 2 month stats:

Height: 21.5 inches (23%)
Weight: 11 lbs, 13.5 oz (78%)
Head Circumference: 38.3 cm

Addy did really well with her shots.  She was crying afterwards, but I started nursing her as soon as the nurse left the room, and she immediately calmed down afterwards and was fine the rest of the day.  I could tell her legs were a little sore, but she really wasn't much different than any other day, thankfully.  However, while I was trying to comfort her during her shots, I glimpsed 2 little white spots on her gums....could she be teething already?!?

Some highlights:

• she is starting to like baths now; I think she finds them relaxing
• she was blessed in church on April 14th.
• we caught her smile on camera for the first time!
• she and I went on her first overnight trip to Time Out For Women. She did fine all day and then was AWFUL when we were trying to get to sleep.  Thank heaven my mom was a trooper (we were sharing a room).
• she laughed for the first time in her sleep
• she does great in the moby when she, Emmett, and I go to the store.  That's the only way I have enough room in the cart to actually get a decent amount of groceries.
• she gained 3/4 of a pound (12 oz) a week for 4 weeks! (between office visits)  She is getting so chunky!
• she chews on her fist a lot
• she refuses to take a pacifier
• she has good head control
• she loves going outside and looking around

Her blessing was a really special day.  She wore the dress that I was blessed in, a bracelet that I made her, and we used blankets made by her Great Grandma Cress and my Great Grandma. I wanted to do a headband, but it was a little much, so we didn't. Daddy, Grandpa Schull, Great Uncle Tom, Bishop Elison, and Brother Kim Mahaffey were part of the circle.

 A close up on her blessing day

 A family shot =)

 Us girls (this showcases her/my dress)

 Pretty girl =)

Look at that head control during tummy time!

Addy is One Month!

Wow, it has been adjustment to have 2 kids.  I am so grateful we are still staying with my family; there is usually someone to help Emmett out when I'm stuck nursing Addy, etc.  And my mom has been a LIFESAVER and taken Addy for part of the night a few times so I could get some much-needed sleep.  One of the benefits with bottlefeeding Emmett was that Jeremy could occasionally take over a feeding so I could get a longer stretch of sleep.  Getting so little sleep has definitely been taking a toll on me; I really don't do well without a decent amount of sleep.  It makes it harder for me to cope with smaller things without a breakdown.  But oh well.  Kids are definitely worth the lack of sleep!

Some highlights of her first month are:

• she had her first bath at home.  She did NOT like it.
• she went to church for the first time at 3 weeks old. She was very popular
• she is starting to smile! I sure love her sweet little smiles!
• she coos a lot
• she makes a lot of noises when she sleeps
• One day she was really twitchy while being held.  We added another blanket over her and she stopped twitching.  I guess she was just cold
• she weighs 8 lbs 5 oz -- she has finally surpassed birth weight! (it only took her 3 whole weeks....)
• she got to meet her Great Great Grandma Lehrbas
• she makes the "Zoolander" face like Emmett did
• she grunts if she's trying to sleep and we wake her up to change her diaper or something.

I feel a little bit bad that I don't have as much written down about her first few months as I did with Emmett because I didn't sit down and write up where she was at developmentally at the end of every month, but at least I wrote a few things down as I thought of them!

 In her church outfit after her first time to church!

2 Years!!

Wow, how has it already been 2 years since this little guy was born?  I can't believe how fast the time has just flown by!

This month we got Emmett on track to start speech therapy through Kadlec as well as the Early Intervention program through the school district.  He still doesn't talk much (although he will babble a little more than he used to) and we figured it'd be best to start addressing the issue sooner rather than later.  So he has his first appointment with a speech therapist at Kadlec on the 18th and will meet with someone for Early Intervention in July.

Emmett is SUCH a good big brother.  You can tell that he loves Adelynn and she loves him.  I frequently will find him going hanging over her and giving her kisses or trying to read her books (there was one we got from the library that had things to feel and he would grab her hand and help her feel them...it was so dang cute.)  He even seems to understand--and not really mind--when I can't hold him/stay with him/whatever because I have to feed "Baby Addy." I seriously couldn't have dreamed that he would react this well to her!  It makes me feel so lucky to be his mom.

Sure, he has times where I want to tie him up (we are entering the terrible two's, after all), but he sure is a sweetheart.  And sometimes I wonder if part of the reason he has such big meltdowns is because he can't communicate what he wants.  (Other times, I know he's just throwing a fit because I won't give him what he wants.)

Other happenings this month:

• He knows his letters!  I was reading a book with him and happened to ask where an "O" was, and he pointed right to it!  He pointed to every letter as I asked and got it on the 1st or 2nd try every time!
• He went to help Addy fold her arms for prayer one night (and usually will check to make sure her arms are folded for prayer lol)
• He helped his stuffed bear to do the actions for "Popcorn Popping"
• He helps his stuffed bear fold his arms for prayer
• He has started to kick balls
• He loves to play with Addy's headbands and hair flowers.
• He enjoys taking a book to bed with him for naptime. I think it helps him wind down and get ready to sleep and also gives him something to do when he first wakes up.
• He loves the show Curious George.  My mom found some Curious George canvas prints at a garage sale and bought them for him, and he loves to bring them to me to show me.
• He likes to lay under Addy's play gym.  The other day they were both laying underneath it and having a great time.
• He learned to splash in puddles and LOVES to do it. (He is going to love it when we get him the other part of his birthday gift--a little wading pool for the backyard)
• He understands the concept of opening presents. (Or at least of tearing off the paper to find fun things inside.)
• He loves oatmeal, cheerios, bread, water with a little Mio in it, hot dogs, bratwursts, enchilada casserole
• He loves to color; both on paper with crayons and on the sidewalk with chalk

 Cuddling with Bear

 He had me put all these flowers in his hair.

 He wanted both these hats on lol

 He climbed in Addy's car seat at the restaurant and had a blast! He was enjoying the attention and so was hamming it up lol

I love this picture of the two of them!

 

He was sharing his toys with Addy.  Such a sweetie!

 His Elmo birthday cake.  Made my mom, decorated by dad

 Sitting in his high chair waiting for cake

 Opening the Curious George canvas prints.

 With his balloon dog he got at the family day at Grandpa's work.  He sure liked that dog...he would lick the dog's tongue haha.  Silly boy

23 months

Well, Emmett got tubes put in.  Poor little guy.  He was not happy about having to put the robe on (and he refused to put the socks on.)  I sure was glad that we brought his blanket, Monkey, and Bear for him.  I was a little frustrated because the nurses told me they'd come get me before he woke up so I'd be there...and then when they brought me back he was already awake. =(  And the poor little guy started crying when he saw me.  But surgery went well and his hearing is much better since the fluid was drained.  Now hopefully he starts talking more soon!

This month he:

• likes to put on his own shoes
• had a blast at the park
• puked for the first time (yuck!)
• had diarrhea for a week (right after the puking. double yuck!)
• loves to color
• figured out he can open the sliding glass door and uses it to escape outside
• says "gone" when he's all done

 He enjoyed playing with Addy's pacifiers.  He was so funny because he would put 2 in his mouth at the same time.

He sorted his blocks all by himself.  Such a smart boy!

 I just thought this was an adorable shot of his feet.  He sure didn't like having that band on his ankle, though.

 Waiting before surgery.  He did NOT like putting the robe on.

 

 Emmett waking up after surgery

 

Emmett loves to line his toys up; he did this all by himself

22 Months

I was worried about how Emmett was going to react to not being the only child anymore, but he's actually been doing really well.  Not that he hasn't had ANY issues...the Nursery leader came to get me one day in church and said he had bitten another kid.  And it sounded like that might not have been the first time. =/ I felt so bad!

Emmett had his pre-op visit and is definitely getting tubes. =(

This month he:

• Likes playing with plastic Easter eggs
• Went on first Easter egg hunt.  He'd find an egg, then open it up to get the candy, then go to another egg and open it up, etc. It's a good thing that it was just HIM on the Easter egg hunt lol.
• Puts toys in the cup holder on the elliptical
• Loves to pick up balls outside and put them in garbage-can-sized bucket, then dump out and repeat
• Loves picking up rocks outside
• Picked up sycamore leaves to make mommy a bouquet (handed them to me one by one...I just couldn't bear to let go of them since he was being so sweet about giving them to me, so I ended up with a pretty little bouquet)
• Understands concept of doing x in order to get y (eating 5 bites of chicken to get more cheese, etc.)
• Wanted to play with giant exercise ball, but I told him he couldn't because he wouldn't help clean up.  Then daddy asked if he wanted to clean up, Emmett ran over and picked up, and then went to the closet where the exercise ball was and pointed like "hey, I cleaned up, so now I get the ball." It was super cute.

 My "bouquet" (I think he brought me a few more after this picture was taken)

 Playing with the balls

 Giving his sister kisses

Playing with the balls