Hit my stride

Lately I have felt like I have really hit my stride as a mom of two. It took me 8 months, but every day I felt like I learned a little bit more to be more efficient, patient, helpful, etc.. So now I feel like two kids is pretty easy. I am loving how smooth life is right now. I know that means something will happen to throw everything off course again until we all adjust again, because that is just the cycle of being a mom. Once you figure out a stage it changes.

I have also fallen head over heels in love with my kids. I didn't think I could love them anymore, but then they do something that makes my heart grow even bigger. I love that!

Brooke is such a sweet and loving girl. She is always trying to take care of other's and she is a really good friend to all those around her. She has gotten better about sharing, she doesn't cry when we brush her teeth anymore, she stays in bed until her "cow clock" wakes up and then she gets out. She listens good and chooses the right most of the time. She says the cutest things all the time and probably has just as eloquent a vocabulary as I do. She really just understands life, and loves it. I am so thankful for her and I am so glad that I am her mommy!! What a lucky person I am!

Preston is my little gift. I know how much Heavenly Father must love me just because of what a sweet baby he sent to me. He is patient, sweet, funny, happy, and just about every other good quality you could think of. He rarely cries. He is almost always laughing or smiling. He is a tender spirit and I can tell that he loves everyone around him. It is as if you can see the love that he has for his sister, daddy and others by the way he is with them, even though he is so little. He is starting to grow up so big lately and it is breaking my heart a little bit. I can't wait to see him in other stages of his life but he has been such a sweet baby it is hard to see that stage leaving. He can stand up, he is almost crawling, he scoots around the house just laughing and squealing in delight. He sleeps through the night normally from 6 PM to 6:30 AM. He does the cutest babbles and has a cute low man voice.( He can also scream and squeal like a girl though.) He loves to eat, and eats just about everything we do. He got four teeth this month, and even though you can tell he is in pain he rarely fusses over them. He really is the perfect baby. I'll put my order in for 5 more just like him.

I feel almost guilty to have as much love for my kids as I do. I am so grateful that being with them is my job and that I get to go through all the bad and all the good of every stage of life with them.

Brooke's Testimony

We had a FHE on Testimonies about a month ago. I wrote down Brooke's and then totally forgot about it. I found it today while going through some papers. It is so precious and I do not want to lose it so I am going to post it here. Here is Brooke's Testimony at 2.5 years old. Word for word what she said.

- I Know I can play with Heavenly Father.

- I love Jesus.

- Jesus loves children.

- Jesus makes our beautiful world.

- I know Jesus got born.

- Jesus got baptized in the water with a bird. (no we are not teaching weird things she is referring to the dove that came down from heaven after Christ was baptized. silly girl!)

- We get married at the Temple.

- Jesus talks at the Temple to hear us. (Once again not teaching weird things she is talking about the statue of Christ at the visitors center at the LA Temple. By the way if you have not gone to the LA Temple visitors center being a Mormon or not you should! It is amazing and has such a great spirit to it. It is a great place for your children to learn more about Christ and to learn more about your role as a family on the earth.

SICK!!

I am sitting here at the computer seriously going crazy!! My family all got sick after Christmas and we have all finally recovered. We had one day out and about at the park yesterday (so nice) and guess what? Brooke woke up with a stomach ache and is throwing up constantly today. UUHHG!!

Having sick kids is the worst but sick kids plus never getting out of the house is seriously driving me insane!!

Dear husband please come home and take care of our kids so I can go somewhere and do something other than clean up throw up...SAVE ME!

Happy New Year!

I know this is late but here it is. I decided to go cheap and not print my Holiday card this year, so here is the digital copy. I hope your holidays were wonderful! Much Love to all of our family and friends!!

Preston is 8 Months!

Our sweet baby boy turned 8 months old. He is such a sweetie and just loves life. He is super easy going and the best mild mannered baby in the whole world. He loves to play with toys especially any kind of electronic like my phone or itouch. He likes to make a fart noise with his mouth, and you can tell he is all boy. He has the sweetest laugh and smile in the whole world. He has one tooth to date and he likes to use it! He loves all food and basically begs for food anytime we are eating. He has tried just about everything already. He is our lazy baby and still will not use his legs in any way. He won't stand, crawl, or anything in between. he loves to sit and roll, and I think it will be a long time before he even wants to crawl. I love him so much and can't imagine my life with out him. Happy 8 months bubba!

Christmas Celebrations!

We had all of our family over to our house for a Christmas family Home Evening and game night on Dec 23rd. We had a lot of yummy treats and had fun with our family. Sadly these are the only two pictures I took from that night.

Christmas Eve - We do our fancy dinner on Christmas Eve. This year we had Filet Mignon, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, salad, and martinelli's. We made cookies for Santa and put them out for Santa along with some carrots for the reindeer. We read Luke 2 and Brookie followed along with her Nativity set. We each got to open one present and enjoyed them for a while. We finished off the night with a reading of The Night Before Christmas and we went to bed with Sugar Plums in our head.

Christmas morning coming down to see our stockings and the gifts Santa brought. Brookie asked for a "Comfy Chair" from Santa, I asked for a Razor Scooter, Jason a Simon Dewey Calendar, and Preston asked for "Rex" from Toy Story. Santa delivered..We must have been good this year:). Brooke was so much fun this year. She totally "got" Christmas.

For breakfast our tradition is quiche and Jason's mom always made him coffee cake so we have carried that on too. My Dad joined us for a while and we all had a relaxing Christmas day just enjoying one another and the spirit of the season. I can't wait tell next year!!

Gingerbread House and LA Temple

We made this awesome Gingerbread House kit from Trader Joe's. Brooke loved doing it and wanted to go inside the house. Moments after the picture of her on the ground with it she stepped on it and said she really wanted to fit.

We also got to go see the lights at the LA Temple and visit the new visitor's center. It was amazing and I could have stayed there all night. Brookie always loves to walk around the Temple. Love my sweet family! So glad we were sealed together forever!! Jason took us to a super yummy dinner at a little authentic Italian restaurant.

December 1st

I am way late on all these Christmas/December posts but here they are. On December 1st our tradition is to open our new Christmas Jammies. We also started a new tradition of opening a new book every day up to Christmas. They were all Christmas books. It was a fun idea but Brooke didn't really like it all that much so I don't know if we will still do it next year. Auntie Lana got to come over and enjoy our December 1st activities with us. It was a great way to start off the season.