Fess Up Friday

I like to weave my way through the parking lot on my way back to my car. That way I confuse people and they can't follow me and sit there and wait for me to get my 2 children and the groceries in the car.

Danny stayed home with the boys for the first time this week. When I got home nothing was on fire, no one was screaming, and the house was clean. I accused him of having my mom come over and clean it. I'm still suspicious.

I have been dairy free for over a month (which is a HUGE deal for me). I was so excited to find out that mint oreos don't have dairy that I ate the whole package. And then got another one.

Cohen threw a fit when I took off his pajamas. He wouldn't stop crying until I put them back on. So we went to OT in Christmas pajamas and rainboots on a 70* day.

I can count on one hand the number of baths Ezra has had in his life.

It would take at least 4 hands to count the number of baths Cohen has had this week. 


My friend has started hosting a "Community Fess Up Friday", if you have anything you'd like to confess (come on, I know you do...) you can head over there (or post here) and leave an anonymous comment! You'll feel better after you do, I promise!

The Guilt

Cohen is having a meltdown over juice. Ezra is cranky and won't nap. I got very few hours of sleep last night. The dishes are piled high in the sink and the laundry is endless. The crying is taking it's toll on me and it all seems so overwhelming and I just want a break.

And then comes the guilt.

The guilt that says this is what you wanted. You said you would be happy if you got to raise your children. These are the days you were waiting for. You said you would give anything just to hear your child cry.

Sometimes I'm thankful for this little voice in the back of my head. It helps me keep perspective and to be able to sort out when I'm just whining and need to change my attitude.

Other times, I want to stomp on this voice. Yes, I did say those things and I am so thankful for my babies and that will never change. But, I'm only human and parenting is hard. Some days I just want to be able to be frustrated and tired without the guilt. I'm a mom just like all the other moms out there who face rough days.

A Free Man

I am so not looking forward to winter. I love summer and I love fall, but I hate seeing the continuous rain of the northwest replacing the sun. We have had an amazing summer, with hardly any rain which I think will make it even harder to see it go.

Cohen has absolutely loved being outside this summer. We have seen him grow tremendously in his social skills, his confidence, and his sense of adventure. He has been free to play and get dirty and see people without having to constantly be spraying hand sanitizer on everyone and disinfecting everything. He has been able to play with his cousins and go to the church nursery without constant paranoia. And it has been WONDERFUL. And so freeing. I can just enjoy the moments with Cohen instead of worrying about him nonstop.

{Who me? Tired? No way!}

10 Things I Love About You: Ezra

1. I love the dimple on your one cheek, it was one of the first things I noticed about you.

2. I love how you "talk" to us

3. I love that you have two chins and chubby cheeks and legs

4. I love your little mullet hair, business on top (hardly any hair) and party in the back (long and dark).

5. I love your snuggles and your "kisses"

6. I even love your grumpy faces and the serious looks you give us

7. I love how you snort when you cry

8. I love how sweet you look when (if) you sleep

9. I love your cute little fingers and your always curled up toes

10. I just love ALL of you and are so glad you are in our family!

10 Things I Love About You: Cohen

1. I love the way you drive your cars and trucks everywhere, including on my keyboard and in the dishwasher even though you know you aren't supposed to.

2. I love that you ask to go to bed and to take naps

3. I love how much you love your brother and give him big hugs and kisses

4. I love that you know so many words, my current favorites being "tato" (potato)

5. I love your fascination with people's knees

6. I love when you look at me with your big brown eyes and long dark eyelashes and give me a big smile and ask for a "hand" to hold

7. I love how much you love to play in the dirt, even though I have to bathe you constantly.

8. I love your sweet personality and your big heart.

9. I love how much you love your kitty even though he thinks you are the biggest nuisance on the planet.

10. I love that you are OURS and that God chose you for our family.

Ezra: 2 Months

Ezra is 2 months old, I can't believe it! It seems like he is getting bigger every day when I look at him. At 2 months he:

-  weighs 11 lbs 6 oz (a few weeks ago)
-  Has been on not one, but two camping trips (one successful, one not)
-  Is wearing mainly cloth diapers, but wears size 2 in a disposable
- Is wearing 3 month clothes
- Only sleeps about 20 minutes a few times during the day
- Is getting up 1-2 times during the night
- Generally looks like this:

- But sometimes like this:

Fess Up Friday

I licked a self adhesive envelope

I also put a stamp on the left corner of the envelope

I consider my day a success when I don't get any bills in the mail

It makes me ridiculously excited when I get to the end of the day and realize Ezra is still wearing the same onesie I put on him in the morning and I haven't changed his outfit 7 times

I let Cohen take Stinky in the bathtub with him because well, why not, he needed a bath too...

I told our cat Russell to go find a new home after I found him on the table eating my lunch while I had been trying to put Ezra to sleep.

I have thrown a burp rag over barf on our bed and gone back to sleep.

Four Year Anniversary

We are coming up on our 4th wedding anniversary next month. Part of me says, holy cow, has it been 4 years!? And the other part says, it's only been 4 years?

 The last few years have been eventful to say the least. I think it's fair to say that Danny and I have lived a lot of "life" over those years. We've had some incredibly good times and some incredibly painful times. Those years have brought us love, laughter, life and death. Joyful "hello's" and heartbreaking "goodbyes". 

There were times in some of my darkest moments where I thought this isn't what I signed up for when I got married. Didn't I sign up for the fairy tale? The blissful moments of being in love and living happily ever after? It hasn't quite gone that way. And yet, it has made us stronger. Those deepest, darkest moments that we have faced, those are the ones when I knew that God had brought me Danny for a reason. He knew I would need someone patient and kind and strong to get me through the trials ahead. Someone to take care of me, but also allow me to stand on my own. Danny has been my rock and my support when I didn't think I could take one more step. He is the one I was meant to face this life alongside. We don't know what else this life will bring us, but I hope we have many, many more years together.

Graduation

I went in for my postpartum check up at my doctor's office and everything is going well. We talked about pregnancy, delivery, and any potential pregnancies. And get this, I wouldn't have to be considered high risk! I could not have asked for our pregnancy with Ezra to go any better. It's a huge relief to know that we were able to have a full term baby with no complications in the pregnancy.

As she left, my OB gave me a big hug. I felt like we should be celebrating and having a party. We made it! I felt like I was graduating from the land of high risk pregnancies. Of course there is always the potential for a preemie in any pregnancy, but not likely. If we decide to have any more kids, I would have to have a c-section because of some things that came up during Ezra's delivery. But maybe, just maybe, we would get a calm delivery. Maybe? One step at a time, I guess. Normal pregnancy and maybe someday a normal delivery!

The Trip that Wasn't

A few weeks ago, our friends came over to visit while they were in town. I mentioned that we were going over to my cousin's wedding and we would be sort of close to where they lived. We briefly mentioned camping, laughed, and moved on. Later on we decided, sure, why not!?

There were a few warning signs that we ignored that maybe we shouldn't have:

- We have 5 young kids between the 2 families
- The weather forecast said thunderstorms and flash floods
- The lady at Starbucks that looked at us like we were a little nuts for taking a 7 week and 2 year old camping

But, we love camping and decided we were up for an adventure. We managed to barely fit all of our stuff in our car for one night of camping. We had lent out our tent and were going to pick it up the morning we left and shove it in the car. We found out that the tent wasn't left out for us so we could either break into my sister's house to get it or wander through my brother's garage and take theirs. We decided against climbing through a kitchen window and decided on using a garage code. I sent Danny over to my brother's to get the tent while I finished getting ready.

We left at 8:00 am with the plan of getting to the campsite, setting up, going to the wedding, then coming back to the campsite for the night.

The boys did okay on the trip over, we had to stop several times to let Cohen out of his carseat and to feed Ezra. At our first stop we realized that Ezra had barfed all over in his carseat and outfit. We cleaned him up, fed Cohen a snack, and continued on. At our second stop, Ezra required another outfit change for blowing out his diaper. He was very quickly using up all the clothes we had brought.

{First camping trip for these 2!}

After about 4 hours in and out of the car, we made it to Eastern Washington to our campsite. We were told the campsite was first come first serve so we were really hoping we would find a spot. There was two sites open so we quickly snagged one. Our friends met us there shortly after and we started to set up camp. We were optimistic since the weather seemed to be nice. All the boys were in heaven with the space to roam and lots of dirt and sticks to play with. Ezra was on his best behavior and was actually sleeping. 

{We were frequently counting kids to make sure we still had them all!}

We took a quick walk after camp was set up. We had high hopes to see the lake, but it was too far away for all the little legs and we had to get ready for the wedding. We went back to the campsite, tried to wipe the dirt off and put on our wedding clothes.

Did I mention Cohen hadn't napped all day? We got to the wedding and found some seats. We quickly realized there was not going to be any sitting for Cohen who was in his don't stop moving or I'll fall asleep mode. Ezra was amazingly still sleeping.

{Mr. Chubs sleeping, so not normal}

Danny spent the ceremony chasing Cohen around outside and trying to keep him busy. Cohen continued to run/fall/be a disaster and it was clear we weren't going to be able to stay very long. Thankfully, my mom and dad were also at the wedding and were able to help us try to keep him under control. I shoved down some lunch, tried to feed Cohen which was totally not happening. I got a few bites in before I just had to give up and take Cohen outside to run (fall). Ezra also decided to wake up and be hungry. Then he decided he really wasn't that hungry, he just wanted to play. I went to change his diaper, which was another blow out and I had to change his outfit. Shortly after the ceremony it started to absolutely POUR down rain. Thankfully it moved over fairly quickly so we figured it would have been the same at the campground. After we inhaled our food, we decided it was time to go before Cohen and/or Ezra completely lost it.

 {Beautiful bride}

As we drove back towards the campsite, we noticed there were huge dark clouds ahead of us. We continued to be optimistic and hoped it would just keep on moving. A few minutes later we got a text from our friends saying it had been pouring rain since we left. They had managed to get everything under cover somewhere and they were hiding in their tent waiting for it to pass. It was sunny literally everywhere else except where we were headed. About halfway there, we hit a roadblock where police were redirecting traffic. All I could do was laugh. We didn't know where we were or if there was another way to get to the campsite. Both of our phones were dead or very close to dying. I had these thoughts of all of our stuff at the campsite with no way to get there and no way to tell our friends we couldn't get through. After driving past the roadblock again we were able to get directions to go around.

We kept getting texts about the situation at the campground...still raining...then hailing...the tent filling with water because it was slightly downhill...

We made it back to the campground and decided to leave the boys in the car until we figured out what we were going to do. We found our friends in their tent with their 3 boys, the bottom of their tent, mats, and sleeping bags completely wet. We started to hear thunder and decided to call it quits. If we left right then we could both get home at a semi-decent hour.

We moved our friends over to our dry tent and sent the men out to quickly gather everything, take down the tents, and stuff it into the car. We sat in the tent listening to the rain while our 5 boys played/wrestled/hugged/cried and ran around.

When everything was in the car we headed out. As we drove away we could see lightning all around. We had been hoping to see a meteor shower, but that was out of the question with the storm. We got home a little after midnight, put the boys in bed, left everything in the car, and fell in bed ourselves. The longest one day camping trip ever! This will be one of those things we look back on someday and makes for a good story. The crazy thing is...we're thinking of trying to go camping again before summer is over!!

It wasn't a total loss though, we got to see my cousin get married, visit briefly with our friends, make about 7 loads of laundry, and inherited a Wubbanub for Ezra.

The Water Boy

Cohen went from being terrified of the sprinkler and not liking water (not even baths) to loving it. It's like someone flipped a switch or something. I'm glad he is enjoying playing in the water now because it's so fun to watch and helps keep him entertained and a little cooler.

He loves to run through the sprinkler with Daddy and one evening I took him for a bike ride and we went through a sprinkler and he demanded "more" so we went through another 30 times. He got a little pool for his birthday and he loves to stand in it and pour buckets of water on himself and go down his slide into the pool. Generally, he is fully clothed when he decides to swim, but I'm just glad he can enjoy the water now!

Boys of Summer

The boys got these adorable outfits at Ezra's shower and I've been waiting for them to grow into them. Love my little summer boys!

Love.

As hectic as our lives seem to have become, I still love it all. It's hard, some days really hard. But when the babies and husband are tucked in and the house is quiet and I have a minute to breathe, I am so thankful for my life. I'm so blessed with my boys. Things have been challenging, but every day is worth it. We know all too well that we aren't guaranteed any certain number of days or hours. Every moment I have with my family is a gift. When I look at my little sleeping babies, I get that feeling that warm fuzzy feeling and I know that this is love.

A Visit From Friends

Our friends from Idaho recently came over for a quick visit while they were in town. It was so good to see them. I always realize how much I miss them when we get to see them. It just feels so comfortable with them because they are so "real". I never feel like I need to make sure Cohen is behaving perfectly or like I'm the perfect parent. Not that I'm able to do that anyway, but it just feels like so much less pressure when we're together.

The boys had fun playing outside in the dirt (sorry about your last clean clothes!!) and eating scones and crackers. Cohen thought it was pretty fun to have other boys his age around. Please move our way soon!!!

This is what it looks like trying to get 5 boys and their moms to all look the same direction at once. We may be crazy because we are hoping to go on a little camping trip this summer. That will definitely make the blog if it happens...

A Quick Update

The blog posts are getting fewer and farther between. I'm trying to keep up though because I like to have things written down so I remember what actually happened in our lives!

At this point, we are adjusting, or trying anyway. It seems to be the theme since Ezra was born. Ezra is much different than Cohen ever was as a baby so we are trying to figure out his little personality and temperament. Poor little fellow is quite fussy and hates sleep. In fact, he hates sleep so much I'm not even sure he's mine!  It makes for quite the challenge with a busy 2 year old and a non-sleeping and cranky baby who naps about 20-30 minutes in a 4 hour time period (Any tips for babies who fight sleep horribly??) But, hopefully we'll figure it out.

{Caught up with the ice cream truck and got a popsicle!}

Cohen has been doing his best to be helpful. He can now take diapers to the trash and bring the binky to baby. It's been a bit hard being as there is only one of me and both my boys need attention and sometimes I feel so bad that I can't give them both what they need at the moment.

{Meeting Gramma 2 for the first time}

I am remembering why I never used to get dressed since I seem to constantly be covered in poop or barf at any given time, plus, who has time to get dressed!?

{Sweet little face that makes it all worth it}

I'm trying to remind myself that both my boys will only be this age once. Even though some days seem to drag on, I know I will look back and think how quickly it went. When I want to pull all my hair out and send myself to the looney bin, I try to keep in mind that Ezra is only going to be little once, so I will try to enjoy these moments as much as I can. I will snuggle my sweet boys and kiss their little cheeks while they let me. And also enjoy my rare moments when the stars align and both boys sleep at the same time. Ahh, a little peace and quiet goes a long way so when they get up we can start all over! It's been hard, but I think the hard moments make the good ones that much better.

{Big boy summer haircut}