One more thing...

I nearly forgot to mention something even more important than poop (see previous post). Jeff and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary on November 16th. How did that happen? How is it that day to day life seems so slow sometimes and yet when you look back, life has moved at warp speed??

I've been accused at times to love my kids more than Jeff. It's tough when you're a mom of young kids. They are physically dependent on you....for everything and therefore take up so much time! As I reflect back on when I was single it's interesting because although I always knew I wanted to be married and even tried to envision who I would marry, I don't think I gave much thought to what kind of wife I would be. On the flip side, I have had very strong ideas and goals on what kind of mom I wanted to be. While mothering is certainly important...so is marriage. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm guilty of not being the wife I should be. I love Jeff, but I know I take him for granted as well. He does the sweetest things that I know most wives would kill to have! Jeff works hard at making things special, of remembering the little things I mention, sending flowers, balloons, stopping to get my favorite drink when I've had a bad day...etc. The list could go on. I won't make this a "look how great my husband is" post, but just know that he is. Flaws and all. I'm grateful for my eternal marriage and that we have an eternity to work on it. I'm grateful for the journey of life we get to share together and that I can work on being a better wife.

To Poop or Not to Poop...that is the question.

Sophie has been strictly on formula now for about 2-3 weeks. Of course she has become quite constipated in the process of switching over. You know how it goes, red-faced, grunting only to squeak out a quarter-sized nugget of poop. Enough of that visual. So...on Saturday I started adding just an ounce of prune juice to her bottles to see if it would help. And help it did. Jeff was holding Sophie Sunday evening and heard her do some business and low and behold the poop of all poops emerged. The pictures just don't do it justice. It was literally EVERYWHERE...and a lot darker than this looks. Imagine the color of prunes. Good thing she's such a doll and worth every poopy mess imaginable.

On a complete but more important side note, we had our YW in Excellence program tonight and how wonderful it was. I generally don't blog about churchy stuff as a rule. I don't know...it just seems so personal. But, I have to say that it was a such a spiritually uplifting, testimony building evening that I loved it. I'm so grateful for this calling. It has made me grow and stretch more than I can say. I think it's safe to say that once again it would appear that Heavenly Father knows me better than I know myself.

p.s...I was able to get all that poop out of her outfit. Surprising, huh?

Little Helper

Chance is a great helper...sometimes. He's been enjoying the leaves - raking AND having leaf fights.

Pigtails - Part Two!! Much better this time around.

Look alike much?? Of course I can tell them apart, but I think they look so similar...also kind of sad that 2 1/2 years later I still look the same too. :)

Halloween

We didn't do a whole lot for Halloween. Earlier in the day Chance and I carved pumpkins. Ok...I carved the pumpkin while Chance watched. He tried to put his hands in the pumpkin guts but was too grossed out. We invited Jeff's Grandma over for dinner too. She really enjoyed being with the kids.

Chance and his friend, Hazel trick-or-treating. Chance LOVED it.

Chance insisted on being Buzz Lightyear for Halloween. Which is pretty funny since he's only seen Toy Story once and doesn't even like it that much. I think its because he saw his friend Bauer a few weeks earlier wearing it. Thankfully by the time Halloween rolled around, Bauer no longer wanted to be Buzz and his mom let us borrow it.

The fruits of mom's labors. My ghetto, uncreative, 10 minute pumpkin. Chance was happy though.

Halloween has officially become my least favorite holiday. I'm not huge on candy to begin with for my kid and Halloween makes it worse...of course. If I hear Chance scream for a treat one more time I'm going to go bonkers. I can't wait until his candy is gone...

Funky Town

I guess I've been in sort of a funk lately. I'm not sure what it is. I think it involved my lack of productivity. I used to be pretty productive in my life. I often feel like I'm in a hamster wheel running around but not getting anywhere. I get so busy that I want to just veg out and relax and then feel guilty when I do because there is so much I SHOULD BE doing. And then there's the cliche of being the "I'm never good enough mom". Jeff and I had this conversation the other day.

Me: I just feel like there's more I could be doing to be a better mom.

Jeff: Hmmm....

Me: Don't you ever just think about all the things you should do to be a better dad?

Jeff: No. I think I'm a good dad.

Me: Yeah, I know you're a great dad, but don't you ever think about things you want to improve upon?

Jeff: No. Not really.

Me: Oh. I'm constantly thinking of how I should and could be a better mom.

Now...this is not to say I think I'm a bad mom. Just that as a woman I think most of us feel this way. There's always something MORE to do. Clean this, organize that, journal this, cook that...You get the idea. How do we fix this feeling? And I KNOW I'm not the only woman who feels this way. And the thing is that people don't even notice. Jeff is perfectly content with how I am...well, mostly. And it's not as if the kids think about it. Chance and Sophie don't realize the house is a mess. Or that we only ate cereal for dinner instead of a real-cooked meal. They're happy.

Alright. Enough venting. Other than that minor glitch in my thought process lately, things really are good. Sophie continues to grow like a weed. We've started her on oatmeal. She's getting the hang of it. She hated it at first. She's sleeping through the night at least 5 night out of 7. Not too bad.

We were experimenting with her hair...so don't laugh. I know it's a little lopsided. We need to work on it. My friend Sherry has two little girls which in my eyes pretty much makes her an expert on hair. We tried. I just feel bad. I feel like it hurts her scalp or something. Cute though, huh? I still can't believe how much she has.

My sis-in-law, Lori bought this adorable little dress for Sophie. It finally fits and I've been so excited to have her wear it. She looked so cute. I love how her face can change so much depending on her expression in these two pics.

You wouldn't know it from this picture, but Chance has been having some anger issues lately. I'm really not sure what's going on. He growls all the time which irritates me to no end. He growls at anything really...if he's mad at it. Like when he tripped on a chair at Grandma's and turned around and growled at it. He's also been having some accidents lately. He went 6 weeks without a single accident and then all of a sudden this last week he's had about 4. I'm not sure what to make of it. Anyway. We made pizzas for lunch one day and Chance LOVED it. it was so fun. He seems to eat better if he is involved in the cooking process.

Sophie Update

We finally managed to get Sophie into the doctor on Friday for her 4 month check up -- 3 weeks late. At any rate, things look good. The Dr. said that Sophie has excellent head control and looks really strong. She's already trying to scoot forward a bit when she's on her tummy. I'm working really hard to give her more tummy time and keep her off head. The Dr. said it's not a worry yet, but she does have a bit of a 'flat' spot on her head. Really, I'm not that worried because Chancey had the same issue, same head shape, etc and his head filled in no problem once he started sitting up more. But...you just never know. I mean heaven forbid she needed a helmet. I would just die. No offense to anyone whose kid had/has a helmet, but I don't want to deal with that. As far as stats go...she's 14 lbs 3 oz (45th percentile) and 25 inches (75th percentile).

I also entered Sophie (and Chance) into the Gap Casting call. This top picture is one that I used. It was cropped so that it was a close-up on those chubby little cheeks. I'm sure she won't win w/ thousands of cute kids, but it's worth a shot!

On another note, I swear I'm getting sick again! I cannot handle this. I was feeling great since mid week and then all of a sudden I wake up this morning with sore throat. UGH!!! Anyone else dealing with this??

Long Time Coming...
I can't believe it's been over a month since I last blogged. I feel like we've had a lot going on, but mostly it's just been us being sick for 3 weeks. Literally. It's been awful, but I think we're finally coming out of it. We (Chance and I) still have a lingering cough and runny nose that won't go away, but the worst of it seems over. This made the 4th week in a row we haven't brought Chance to nursery though. It's just a breeding ground for sickness. Anyway, here are some current pictures of all of us!

We made out way to the Pumpkin Patch on Saturday to let Chance pick out his very own pumpkin. He LOVES his pumpkin. He carried it around all day today and even told me it was "cold" and needed to get under the blanket. Then he said, "my pumpkin loves me, mom" and leaned over to kiss it. It was really sweet. Kids of course say the cutest things.

Sophie is getting so chubby! We haven't had heard 4 month check up yet - even though it's been weeks - since we've been so sick, but I think she's probably pushing 15 lbs. She decided to have a major poopy blowout right before we got on the wagon ride. Of course, I forgot an extra change of clothes, so she donned a sweater, diaper and blanket for the whole afternoon. Thankfully it wasn't that cold. I've also realized how old I look. Not sure if it's the way the sun is hitting my face or what, but I just feel so old in this picture. Lines on my forehead and crow's feet on my eyes. I think turning 30 in February will be harder than I thought. :(

Sadly, this is our ONLY family picture so far. What's wrong with us? I don't know why we don't have any others, but we don't. We need to work on that. I don't think a lollipop hanging out of Jeff's mouth does our family justice.

Hopefully this isn't totally innappropriate, but I couldn't help it. Look at his little bum. Chance has been doing awesome pooping and peeing on the potty and insists on wiping himself. He came out of the bathroom with this the other day. Jeff and I were cracking up. He keeps saying now that he "doesn't want paper stuck in his bum bum any more".

This is pretty much how Sophie spends her waking hours. Fingers in her mouth, drooling all over the place. She's really getting personality. She's still a great, easy going baby. She's been sleeping through the night - most of the time. She also giggles like crazy (especially at Jeff), rolls over and "plays" with toys.

My smiley baby!

Jeff hates her hair like this and insists she looks like a 70 year old man with a comb-over, but I think it's cute. I still need to work on doing bows or SOMETHING in her hair. I'm just not good at that sort of thing. I can barely do my own.

Back in September, Jeff's work threw a party at Lagoon (a local amusement park). We were able to get some extra tickets and invited Gigi and her kids to come along. Here is Chance on a ride with his cousin, Brooklie.

Chance had THE BEST time that night. It was so nice to be able to do something fun that we would never pay for otherwise. Thanks Nuskin.

I almost forgot. Jeff came home the other day from work and announced that he was "going to run a 9K". OKAAAAY. Jeff's NOT runner and nor has he done anything remotely athletic in quite some time. This all came about because he was building a website for his uncle who pretty much initiated the organ donor program in the country. His uncle wants to promote awareness and have a fundraiser here in Utah. They are sponsoring a 9K on October 24th in SLC to coincide with the idea that one person can save 9 lives when signing up for organ donation.

That being said, Jeff's been doing an awesome job running the past week getting all geared up for the race in a few weeks. I'm really proud of him and hope it works out well! If anyone else is interested, let me know. I will find the site and post it for you.

Oh Andy...

Just like I'm a not-so-closet Sinbad fan, I have in resent years become a tennis fan. Like kind of obsessive...especially this summer. It used to just be the U.S. Open ever Labor Day weekend because nothing else was on. Actually, this maybe too much information, but it just so happened that we were "trying" to get pregnant with Sophie at this exact time last year. This is when the idea of naming our maybe future baby that wasn't even conceived yet "Andy" somewhat after Andy Roddick.
Anyway... since having Sophie this summer, I was up around 5 am a lot right after she was born. Conveniently, ESPN2 was airing coverage Live from Wimbledon at exactly 5 am thanks to the time difference. And that's when the heartbreak began. Andy lost to Federer IN THE FINAL. A close 5 set match. I really was heartbroken...as if I knew the guy personally or something. It was crazy. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days...how hard it must be to work that much and get so close and yet not win.
So, of course I was rooting for him to win the U.S Open this week. And of course, he broke my heart again by losing last night in the 3rd round! Another close match. Everyone really felt like this was his year. UGH.
Anyway...I KNOW no one cares, but I just had to vent. At least the major tennis tournaments will be over soon so I can continue on with my life.

I came home from work and Chance was jumping on the cushionless couches. When I walked in he was still jumping and said "Hi Daddy!" I thought it was pretty funny, but was very curious where Amanda was and I looked in our bedroom. She was knocked out (she claims for a few minutes), If it was just for a few minutes, it shows the destructive power of my boy.

I took a photo of Amanda sleeping but she deleted the photo.