A Trip To Utah

Back in August/September I took the kids on a road trip to Utah to visit my sister and my friend Alicia! We drove up with my friend Heather and her two kids. It was the longest road trip EVER with a four month old who didn't play with toys yet and had to be nursed all the time. The drive was torture.

But while we were in Utah it was full of a lot of fun! Well, as much fun as you can have with small kids involved. It takes forever to just leave the house. But here are some pictures of our adventures!

After a full day of sitting in the car, we were all thrilled to finally arrive at our destination!

Alicia is one of my best friends and before this trip we had never even met each others kids! So it made me so happy to get to stay with her and her husband and adorable son so we could all play!

Alicia showed me the way to style James's hair!

Driving to the park...

I couldn't get over how GREEN Utah was. There was this park that Emily loved because she could run and run. 

Kristin met us at the park too!

You wouldn't think going to places like the PARK would wear someone out. But when you're vacationing without help from a spouse with two kids...it is exhausting!

 One of the days we were visiting, I got to meet up with a couple of friends from high school! I was blessed with a great group of friends in high school and I've stayed in touch with a lot of them. It was a lot of fun to see our kids play together!

Another thing we did in Utah was visit this waterfall area where you could feed fish. Emily loved this!!

We made many trips to get treats for ourselves because, why not? 

Luckily Alicia and Kristin live pretty close to each other. After the waterfalls, and I think a trip to the mall was the same day, we went to visit Kristin. We walked from her apartment to a hot dog place near her campus, and just hung out for a bit before I had to get the kids back to go to bed. Here is Emily playing with Kristin. Kristin is a great aunt!

 We cut the trip a little short (9 days was going to be too long for us) so after a few days we decided to fly home instead of make that drive back much later in the week. We all missed Michael and Jexi and they missed us!! 

Going to the airport with all our stuff was insane. Alicia was there and we had to try to push two strollers and carry all this luggage by ourselves. She had her son with her too.

People stared.

But we made it to the gate! There were actually some very kind strangers who offered their help along the way.

 I ended up sitting next to a guy who knew people I knew and he helped me on the flight a bit and then helped me get off the plane with my kids and get the stroller until we saw Michael. 

All in all it was a good trip and I'm glad I went! It was just really hard. Worth it though, just to see family and friends and to get away for a bit and go somewhere with the kids! It was their first time out of the state and James's first time on a plane!

Emily and James Update!

Has it really been so long since I've blogged? Where has the time gone?! Baby James is almost a year old already!! I've got some major catching up to do!! Since it's been so long since I have updated, I'll separate these updates into different posts. This one will be all about Emily and James!

Emily is 3 1/2 and she's wearing size 5T/XS.

She started preschool in January. She loves it and is doing really well. She speaks and understands so much now. Like a mini adult. Haha. True to character, she loves the singing and dancing part of preschool the most. She also is learning how to write her letters. She can recognize the letters in the alphabet and knows how to write her name. She is growing up so fast!

 She has little dance classes at my friend Meagans house once a week and she is getting better at following directions and coordination. She is very sassy but sweet.

She loves her brother A LOT and tries hard to be a good big sister. She is almost completely potty trained. She still has accidents occasionally and wears diapers to bed at night because we can't seem to get her to give up taking milk in a sippy to bed. Plus she doesn't nap anymore (it's been like a year since we cut naps) so she goes to bed around 7:00. She is still very attached to "Stuffy". He's her go-to comforting stuffed animal. A little purple dinosaur puppet that she loves. (Not Barney.) She threads her fingers through the tag as she falls asleep. Emily loves all things girly. Dresses, jewelry, dress up clothes, bows, dolls, etc.

Here's a few random questions and answers for fun.

Me: What's your favorite color?
Emily: Pink (as she shows me the goldfish crackers she has in her mouth)
Me: Who's your best friend?
Emily: Charlotte (who's mom teaches dance)
Me: What's your favorite food?
Emily: Ice cream (like mother like daughter)
Me: What's your favorite toy?
Emily: Cinderella Barbie (we got her her first "Barbie" that is Cinderella)
Me: What's your favorite show?
Emily: Sofia The First and Doc McStuffins

Now, about baby James! He is wearing size 12 month clothing and I can probably start getting out the 18 month clothing for him now. He has always been such a mellow, easy going little guy. Even when he is sick, tired, or teething, he is smiley and just happy to be hanging out with us. He slept a lot as a baby, which gave me hope that at least one of my babies would be good sleepers but alas, it is not so. He has never slept more than four hours at a time at night. And more often than not he ends up sleeping in our bed because I am too tired at night to get in and out of bed several times. He does usually take one nap a day in his crib now. He has never really taken more than one nap a day. Other than his sleeping habits though, he is an especially easy baby. He loves playing with Emily! He just adores her. He watches everything she does. He is a fast crawler now (at almost 11 months), has around seven teeth, and I swear he says "Mama". He is very much a "Mama's Boy". When he wakes up at night, if Michael picks him up he will keep craning his neck to find me and won't settle down until I hold him. It's a blessing and a curse!! He also is still breastfeeding. I breastfed Emily for 13 months but even the last few months of nursing her I was giving her bottles of formula here and there for convenience and she was eating foods. James, however, couldn't care less about food. He refuses bottles/sippy cups and only tolerates food when I give it to him. But I love him so much. I can't resist him!

Michael and I are loving life with two kids. As sleep deprived as we are, it's been great, We love watching the relationship between Emily and James develop as they start to play together and make each other laugh. We really are so blessed!

Just Call Me Mama Bear

Our weekend was pretty low key this time because Michael worked every day. It was pretty much just all Emily, Jexi, and me hanging out at home all weekend. I was working on my Scentsy orders too. But one thing this weekend is really sticking out in my mind. I just HAVE to write about it because, well, it's eating me up and I know it will never be seen by anyone who would be offended.

One of my neighbors' elderly mother just moved in with him and she is clearly very lonely because she has latched onto me like peanut butter on bread. She wants to chat ALL THE TIME. Whether on the phone or at her house. Yes, she has had me come over to her house while Emily was napping (and Michael was home sleeping) for AN HOUR. She can't stay on one topic for more than a few minutes. She complains about her life a lot. She has said Emily shouldn't be on a bottle any more and that three out of four of her children were potty trained at 9 months old because she "didn't care for diapers." Every time I said "YEAH" instead of "YES" she stared me down until I corrected myself. 

I AM GOING TO GO CRAZY. I'm not a confrontational person and especially with strangers and even more so with ELDERLY STRANGERS. What am I going to do?! Ugh. I do not care for her telling me how to parent Emily and how to speak. I'm a grown woman, dang it!! But what am I going to say to her? Probably nothing. I'm trying to do the Christian thing and be nice to her, visit with her, be patient, etc. But I don't know how much I can take.

What would you say or do if you were in my shoes?

So what if Emily is still using a bottle? She didn't drink from a bottle AT ALL until she was about 10 months old and I finally had some freedom. She won't be drinking from it forever so what is the rush? She doesn't use pacifiers so I'm not worried about her teeth getting messed up.

Babies learn things at their own pace and I'm not going to let someone try to make me feel bad about Emily not doing certain things by a certain age. 

She is learning to use a spoon and I am learning to relax about her getting messy. 

I think we are doing just fine, thank you!

What kind of "park parent" are you?

We all know that people like to give their two cents (whether asked for or not) on things that may not be any of their business. For example, when I was pregnant I got one particular comment from someone about the shape of my belly. I have found that that was just the beginning. Everyone seems to like voicing their opinions on very personal matters like epidural or not (I didn't get one- but I don't blame others who do), nursing or not and for how long (I pushed through the hard times and was able to nurse for over a year- but again, it's none of my business if others do that or not), how to feed the baby, how to clothe the baby, how to put the baby on a sleeping schedule (although, thanks to my SIL Jocelyn we were able to get Em on a schedule and in her own bed), whether to give them medicine or not, and the list goes on!!

As a first time mom it is hard enough to feel unsure of a lot of things but then when you have people left and right telling you how to do things, it can get even more stressful. If I ask for help, that's one thing. But telling me how to raise MY child? Oh, heck no!

Do they think I wouldn't do what I feel is best? What makes them think they have any right to tell me I am doing things wrong?

This came up the other day when I posted on facebook this blog post about what jeans are flattering and what jeans aren't. I like to look nice and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. But I got a comment from someone that said something along the lines of "I don't care. I would rather spend X amount of money on a cheap pair of jeans and feed and clothe my children". Was she trying to call me selfish for wanting a good pair of jeans? Does she think that if I buy one thing that I wouldn't be able to feed and clothe Emily? And does she think that I would buy those jeans if it did mean I couldn't feed and clothe her? That's just one example.

A friend of mine posted this article on her facebook about taking your kids to the park and letting them play and learn on their own, even if that means they can't climb something or get hurt in the process. It says that hovering over and helping your children be safe and do things they feel they can't do on their own is, pretty much, hindering them in the long run.

I asked around to hear some of my friends thoughts on that article.

"I think it is great for them to learn on their own. As long as I am comfortable that Finn is safe."- Andrew

"Moms that sit 15 feet away from their kids at the park are lazy and I usually end up disciplining their children."- Meagan

My thoughts? At this point, Emily is still too young for me to go sit down and watch her play. She puts things in her mouth and wouldn't be able to do much besides that if I wasn't there to help her up the stairs and down the slide. Will I always do that? No. Once she is old enough and capable of playing on her own, I will let her. But I will always be watching her closely and help talk her through or show her how to do things if she needs my help.

Another thing I would like to point out is that I think some parents ARE lazy at the park. Not all of the parents who are sitting far away are letting their children learn. They are lazy. I had to tell kids at the park to not go down the slide at the same time as Emily because they would slide right on top of her. I had to tell a kid to not hit his sister. A girl wanted to get on a swing next to Emily but was too little to get up on her own so I had her go get whoever she came with. See my point? These kids may be old enough to play on their own but it doesn't mean they shouldn't be supervised.

What do you think? Are you a "helicopter", a "sit down and let them play", or an "in between" parent?