A Visit with Great Grandpa and Grandpa Leatherman

My Grandpa is awesome and he was able to come visit us for a few hours in the beginning of this month. Oh how I love to see this amazing man play with his grand kids. He will get on all fours and crawl with them at the age of 88, and do just about whatever will make them happy. He is so great with them and they love him so much. My Dad was able to come too and it was fun to play, talk , and listen to some awesome family stories about my heritage and where I came from. After Brooke woke up from her nap to find they had left she said. "Oh no where did my Grandpa's go?"

Valentine's day 2011

It seems like we celebrated Valentine's a long time this year. Probably because we decorated our house for it a month in a half before the actual holiday. WE made heart garland, set out candy, made candy, gave Jason 14 days of Valentine's, blew up way too many balloons, popped too many balloons, enjoyed a fancy Valentine's dinner at home, had a Valentine's FHE, and ate lots of delicious treats. The best part...Knowing I get to keep all 3 of my Valentine's all year long. I sure love them all.

1st haircut

My awesome friend Ashley came and visited us from Arizona a couple weeks ago. We got to hang out with her and her cute boys Parker and Preston. We had such a fun time, and I really miss them! Ashley is the best hairdresser ever and agreed to cut Preston's, Brooke's and my hair all while our 4 kids played around us. It was crazy! Thanks Ashley for being so awesome! Here are the results of Preston's first cut.

before - a mullet and a lot on the top.

after - short and super cute!

First Sleepover

Brooke had her first real sleepover with her friend Brooklyn a few weeks ago. Maria took the girls to Disneyland for the day and then the girls got to do a sleep over at our house. They had a lot of fun and did great! These two have sooo much fun together and really are the best of friends.

10 Months

My little baby is now a little man. It seems everyday I see a little bit more of the little baby in him leave and a little bit more of the "little man" become apparent. He is still such a delight to be around. He LOVES his sister more than anything (despite the torture and teasing) and will follow her around and cry when she leaves the room. He loves just about any activity. He loves bath time, eating, dancing, singing, playing with toys, etc... This month he has started to say "Dada" even though I have tried t0 teach him Mama far more often. He does a half scoot half crawl and is pretty fast getting around the house. He will play peek-a-boo with you by putting one of his hands on his forehead "covering" his eyes and then pull it away with a huge delighted smile, that melts my heart. He is starting to have a little bit of separation anxiety and doesn't want to be away from me, and wants to held by me a lot. (which I love:) ) He is also teething SUPER bad and has a lot of crazy gum problems at the moment that is making him a pretty bad sleeper and a fussy baby. It is sad because he is never like that and I know he must be in a lot of pain. He likes to shake his head no. He loves to "schmeegle" (no I don't expect anyone outside my family to know what that means), and he loves to babble and scream in a high pitched voice. He is starting to give kisses and wave bye bye. He loves to watch people and observe. He is still a very timid baby and very laid back. I love him with all my heart and I KNOW I am the luckiest Mom in the whole world. Happy 10 months sweetie!

Don't you just want to kiss that little face?

Happy Valentines Day!

We love you all! Have a wonderful valentine's Day!!

Awful...

Well I am sitting here with a pit of guilt in my stomach. I feel a little silly posting this right after I posted about "hitting my stride" but hey that is real life.

I freaked out at Brooke today, and I'm not talking about a little bit. I freaked out BIG time! She had been whining for about an hour straight and the last two days she has been taking Preston's toys over and over again. This combination are my least favorite things kids can do. Whining I absolutely dislike and when she always takes whatever Preston is playing with really gets to me.

So here is the situation - I had just blown up 72 red balloons by hand so we could have a Valentine's balloon party together. Brooke had just woke up from a nap which is when she is normally is at her best. But as soon as she got up it was non-stop whining. In an attempt to get her to stop I took her downstairs and surprised her with all the balloons. We were all playing together but every time Preston grabbed a balloon she would go take it. Um hello, don't you realize there are 72 of these things? I kept telling her to stop taking them but after the 10th time or so of her taking them just to be mean. And yes she was trying to be mean, I lost it...

I grabbed her and started yelling at her. Threw her on her bed and told her to "STOP TAKING PRESTON"S TOYS!!" I kept yelling at her that she needed to listened to what I said. If I said to stop taking Preston's toys she needed to do that. If I told her to stop screaming in the house then she needed to do it. (She always screams louder when I ask her to be quite.) She pretty much has started to disobey everything I ask her to do just because. I am a consistent parent. if she does something there is always a consequence. So why does she do things to disobey on purpose??

So I did, I totally and completely lost it. I yelled at my daughter for a good minute or so (loud and mean, not a nice yell), and now I feel awful.

I grew up in a house of yelling, so unfortunately that is the first thing that comes to me when I am angry or when I really just don't know how else to react. Normally I know this and I stop to cool off before I do something but today just really set me off.

Sometimes I feel like I am the worst parent in the world even though I know that 95% off the time I am being a pretty good one.

It really does amaze me how I have only screamed like that today and now I feel like it will be the only thing she remembers.

So there you go I feel terrible and really feel like I don't know how to parent anymore.

Consistency isn't working. The yelling today..worked. What does that mean??

I know I don't want to be a "yeller" so that rules that out.

Brooke is hard right now. She likes to do whatever I ask her not to do. I will just keep praying for help from heaven in raising her. But today I learned that yelling is a awful feeling that I don't want in my home or in my relationship with her.

I know this may seem like a basic concept but it was a profound one for me today. I hope this post will be a good reminder to me the next time I want to scream.