our little Wubsies

Brookelyn seems to be getting all the attention lately so I thought I would write about our little man!  He is such a momma's boy! He loves to cuddle, kiss, taking baths, playing with Brooke's toys and making her mad, pulling Brooke's hair, and nursing. 

He is conspiring to see how long I can go without sleep... He still wakes up 2 or more times a night to nurse. I have tried letting him cry it out but its hard with a toddler and a hubby who has to wake up early.  And he eats as if he is starving so its hard to know if its a spoiled thing or he just needs a little more to eat. I have increased all his solids and he still wants to nurse! Aaron and I were laughing the other day because we increased his solids but he still nurses the exact same amount! He is our little tank. At his nine month appointment he weighed 20 pounds. He is in size 5 diapers and 18 months clothing. The 12 month clothing shrinks and won't fit over his chubby arms and legs!

He can fit Brook's pull-ups! They work amazing at night. Keep him leak free. Check out his legs! 

He took a tumble off the bed and clonked his head on a corner. He kept hitting his head and opening the wound so I had to put some tape on it so protect it. He started pulling himself up to standing position and quite enjoys the freedom. We took the kids to the park and he LOVED the swing!!!

He is crawling!  When he started off, he did the inch worm/army crawl. Now he is up on all fours moving like a crazy man.

Brooke got a hat and of course Brayden stole it. 

Very stylish, wouldn't you say?

He got his 3rd tooth. But its not the normal top tooth. Its a tooth to the side of where his middle teeth will be. I have  been trying to snag a picture but its hard. His fourth is coming in on the opposite side in the same position so he is going to have fangs! He looks so goofy.

If he is feeling neglected he crawls over to your feet and hangs on to your ankles until you pick him up. Or he will sit there holding his arms up, screaming at you until you pick him up. He is already experiencing communication frustration. He frequently screams trying to tell us what he wants. I am working on teaching him signs so hopefully that helps. Brooke loves to show him all the signs she knows. 

History repeats itself

When I was younger my mother gave me free roam of the kitchen. As long as we cleaned up our mess. I love taking out her Betty Crocker cookbook and trying new recipes. The pictures of the perfectly constructed food was so appealing and I longed to recreate what I saw. One of my attempts was a lemon jelly roll. It was simple enough, if you were a patient person. I am not. I rushed the cooling process so the cake part was a crumbly mess but I still tried to get it into a roll shape. The lemon filling also did not turn out so it was a crumbly, fake lemon flavored mess! I remember being so proud of it though and thrilled that mom pretended to like it.
One of my favorite things to make was Orange Julius. We always had orange juice in the freezer so it was a perfect addition to our breakfast. Well the first time I had ever tried to make it I didn't really know how to use mom's blender. I blended all the ingredients and proceeded to try and figure out how to get the pitcher off the blender base. Instead of pulling straight up, I twisted. Can you guess what happened?? Yup. Orange Julius EVERYWHERE!!!! I think it was one of those moments Mom wanted to get mad but couldn't help laughing but didn't know where to begin the clean-up. Well you think that I would learn, but Nope! Guess what I did. I do remember to lift instead of twist now but I forgot to put the lid back on before I turned the blender on. This is the result.

I had been juicing and wanted to add spinach. Brayden was on the floor whining so I got distracted after the juice  was in the blender and you can see the results. Bubba's face was priceless as juice splashed his big ol head.

Mom I took pictures before clean-up  just for you!

Never dull around this house!!

I was getting Brooke dressed this morning. We were giggling and playing. I was tickling her and chasing her and she turned around and said, "Poopy head" with the cutest little smile on her face. She wasn't being naughty, just playing around! I burst out laughing and didn't really know how to deal with it. Oh well... Today I will laugh about it and figure it out later. With this little face its hard to get mad at her!

This is the other little face that makes my heart melt

one more phrase...

I just remembered one of Brookelyn's most entertaining new phrase..

"NI HAO!"

pronounced knee-how.. it means hi in chinese

She learned it from this new show thats like Dora but teaches kids Chinese. You can't help but giggle when you hear you yell, "NI HAO!"

2 hours and 23 minutes

I guess I do write a lot more blogs than I thought! I just never post them! I went into my edit post and found a bunch of blogs that never got finished and posted. One of the important ones was about my half marathon! so here it is:

Thats how long it took me to run my half! I was very happy with my time because my goal was somewhere between 2:15 and 2:25. Why did I run a half you might ask.. hmm... good question. Still not really sure. I gained alot of extra weight with Brayden and I knew the only way I was going to loose it would be to run. My first run, I thought I was going to die! It turned out I barely ran a mile. I slowly built up my distance and pretty soon four miles was an easy run. I started chatting with one of Aaron's friends from MN, Miss Angela, and she had recently started running as well. She loves sunny get-aways from the frozen tundra land so she told me to find a race and she would come and run it with me. Well in my mind I was thinking 3K, 5K somewhere along that lines. I found the Surf-City race and skyped her to sign up. Well as we were signing up, we got a crazy thought and signed up for the half. Don't know what possessed us, but we made the leap! We were excited, but nervous because 13 miles is a lllooonnng way to run!

Training started and I quickly learned I wasn't going to get all the training time I needed due to the fact I am a SAHM and a hubby who is a full time student. I ran when I could but was so stressed because I didn't think I would be ready for 13 miles. The farthest I ended up running in training was close to ten miles. And I wasn't able to run a long run the week before the race. But my dad reassured me if I could make it ten, the following 3 would be a piece of cake. He was right!  The hardest part of the race for me was the middle miles. I was getting so bored in my mind! It was weird though because it was like we were running at a social event. People along the way stopped to chat and use the bathroom. Stopped to take pictures at the mile markers. Stopped to talk to family cheering them on. Stopped to eat a snack. Angie and I did an aswesome job at keeping each other up to pace. When we hit mile 10 , the adrenalin hit! Our feet were numb but only 3 miles left!!!  Then 2 miles. Then 1 MILE! The last mile was tough only because people were WALKING right in our way!  Angie was trying to cheer everyone on and get people moving. She was so enthusiastic the whole race! In many of the pictures she had a huge grin on her face and my face sported a scowl. Her cheers and encouragement helped me get through the entire race. We finally crossed the finish line and all I remember her telling me is, "Don't puke here! Keep walking!" We could barely contain our excitement- We had just finished 13 MILES! and HUGE kudos to Angela. In her training, the farthest she had run without stopping was around 8 miles!!! And neither of us walked the entire race. I think we had permanent smiles on our faces for hours. We couldn't really walk for the rest of the day but it was well worth it. We really want to run the Disneyland half marathon but there are details to work out.. but hands down the Surf-City will be a yearly tradition!!

Bright and early 6am! Ready and excited to run

Had to stop and take a picture by a palm tree for good luck. In  our rush to find parking we didn't realize how far away we had parked! After the race, we had to walk a good hour to find our car!! We were shocked how far  it was and kept turning around to look for the car. 

Waiting to get to the starting line

At the starting line.. Angela talked to the announcer guy and he gave a shout-out to Minnesota!

There we are at mile 12!!! If you look closely, Ang is clapping and smiling! 

Proud, hungry and sore but we did it and have the sweet medal to prove it :)

from the mouth of Babes

Brooke has been picking up several new phrases lately. She went from speaking one word to sentences! It still takes the mommy translator to understand what she is saying but she is making progress.

- I had made a huge fruit salad for my mom's group. When Brooke saw the big bowl she asked if she could have some. I told her she could when we got home. She proceeded to jump up and down and say "MMmm good mommy!! its my faayyhhuuhh! mm, berry, mm gape, mm appul. Day-du mommy!"  I couldn't quite understand what faayyhhuh was but as I thought it dawned on me. "Brookelyn did you say this was your favorite fruit salad?" She threw her arms around me, "YEAH! mmmm day-du mommy!" (Day-du is thank you)

-I took the kids shopping the other night so Aaron could study in peace. For whatever reason I had to slam on the brakes and all of a sudden I had a back seat driver. 

"WHOAH. dareful mommy" (careful)

-"Uh do daddy?" (what are you doing daddy)

- "Mommy, Sssshhhhh"  (yes it does sound very disrespectful but I was talking to Aaron while she was trying to watch Little Bear. )

- "mommy it tittles!! Stopuh" (tickles) I burst out laughing at that one.. I didn't even know she knew what tickling was! When I told Aaron about it he said she learned it from a show they watched together called Kipper. 

"My tuuhhyy huurts" (tummy) She had her first ever flu bug and learned what it meant to have a hurt tummy. Now she says it all the time and I have a hard time knowing if she is just saying it because she learned a new phrase or if her tummy really does hurt. But lately, my tummy hurts is followed by, " I huunggy. uh eat" (I am hungry, I want to eat)

-"I sorry Mommy"

I guess she thought Vicks vapor rub would be a good face mask.. 

*sidenote

List of all the things Brooke has got into in the past two weeks

butt cream

vicks

shampoo

toilet paper while taking a bath

eating markers

drank a bottle of Bubba's teething medicine(Thankfully it was an all natural herbal one)

chewed up all of his teething tablets (herbal as well)

vitamin E oil

tried to make her own cup of coffee ( thats my girl!!)

I swear, I don't neglect my children!!!!!!! She is a fast sneaky little girl. Oh I forgot about the unwinding of all the dental floss.

Brookelyn is our spunky little spitfire of a toddler! She keeps us laughing, crying, cuddling, spanking, scolding, praising, kissing, spanking, pulling our hair out (speaking of hair, she cut her own hair this week. thankfully it was only a little lock)  all in a matter of a couple minutes. 

My favorite new phrase

"Mommy, cuuhle wif  me" (cuddle)

a Fruity blog

I realized I have a blog-phobia... If I don't have pictures to go along with my blog I don't want to write anything. A blog full of words and no pictures makes me nervous and wonder if anyone will ever really read it. I know this is silly because the majority of blogs written by other people have no pictures! In other words, its perfectly normal to have a pictureless blog. So today I am taking a big step and blogging with no pictures!

For the past couple months I have been rolling the fruit of the spirit verse over and over in my head.

        "But the fruit of the spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness,Goodness,

Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control...."

Brookelyn recieved an adorable book for Christmas explaining the Fruit of the Spirit to children. (In my thought process I thought, I should go take a picture of the book and put it up) It is her favorite book and it gets read every night giving me even more time to think about this verse, how to practically apply it to my life and be an example to my family.  This is some of what the Lord has taught me...

LOVE-
It is easy to have an unrealistic fairy tale idea in our head  of what love is. Society tells us that to be in love is Sex, beauty, words, convinient and disposable. Marriage is based on this so called love so divorce is an easy option when there is no more love. For better, for worse, rich or poor, til death are no longer taken seriously. So with this unrealistic example of love, how am I supposed to love my husband? How do I love when it is at the worst? It is easy to be in love when life is going perfect and there is no stress. It is almost as if the Lord has held up a mirror to my heart. In those moments of not wanting to love Aaron because I am angry at him , or  he isn't acting as perfect as my un-realistic brain (influenced by society tellling me how a husband should be acting) the Lord has shown me its not about Aaron, its about ME. How am showing my love even when I am crabby, sick, annoyed, stressed or unhappy? Alone, there is no way I can unconditionally love my husband but the Lord has given my the Holy Spirit to help me love. As I sat and reflected, the times I had a hard time loving Aaron it wasn't directly his actions, it was my attitude and my lack of loving Christ. I would sit there and selfishly think if I am not getting what I want, I am not going to love. What a wrong attitude! The Lord calls us to Love with no expectations! When I am persuing my relationship with the Lord and loving Him, loving my husband comes easily. The little annoyances can overtake and overwhelm me, taking away my desire to love. But, " if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am NOTHING"
JOY-
My motto lately has been , The JOY of the Lord is my strength! When I am happy, I have a peace in my heart and feel like I can conquer anything. These past couple months have been extremely hard for various reason and I lost my joy. Its still a constant battle to stay joyful in every situation but the but I want that peace so I strive to be joyful :)
PEACE-
These two sure do go hand in hand..... These past couple months I have had to get on my knees before the Lord begging for peace in situations that wrenched my heart and as always, the peace came along with a confidence in the Lord. The song "when peace like a river attendeth my way" has been stuck in my head for weeks! Amidst everything, it is well with my soul!
PATIENCE-
-big sigh- this is my biggest struggle right now!!!!!!!!!!! I thought I was doing pretty well being patient with the kids. Then I got a sinus infection and my dear hubby had to be in class for two days straight.... I didn't realize how grinchy I had become until I heard Brooke yelling at Brayden to "SHHUUU UUPP BUBBA". She started yelling her responses to me and growling when she disagreed.  I cringe to think she learned this from me but like I said, the Lord has been holding a mirror to my life and showing me what needs to change. and being patinet is a BIG one! It is easy to be nice to them when I am feeling good and have everything done I need to get done. But heaven forbid you want to sit and cuddle when I have the house to clean! or want to sing twinkle twinkle twenty times when my heads is exploding with pain.. Aaron has had to kindly remind me to not talk in a certain way to the kids but  I end up snapping at him becasue how dare he tell me what to do. Oi. I wonder how he doesn't yell "shut up" to me. I am glad the Lord is showing me that when I respond unkindly with no patience, my kids see that and respond accordinly. That humbles me and makes me strive to change.
KINDNESS-
I have learned that kindness is a very hard fruit for me to eat.... If I am kind to someone I want  kindness or recongnition returned. I need to be a selfless sevant to my family, doing things out of love and not a selfish motive.  I have also had to learn to be kind to people even when they treat you with complete disrespect. That was a hard one but the Lord really flooded my heart and helped me show kindness even when it was unapreciated, unaccepted and taken for granted.
GOODNESS-
I always say, "BROOKE YOU BE GOOD" I have learned that she learns her behavior from me. If I am yelling, she is going to yell. If I am ignoring her, she will ignore me. etc... If I want her to be good, I need to model that good behavior and show her how I expect her to behave. So in other words.. "MOMMY BE GOOD"
FAITHFULNESS-
Even when I am not faithful, GOD IS FAITHFUL! What an amazing example of faithfulness! In these last months, when I was faithful to turn to the Lord, He delivered me. Even when I wasn't turning to Him, he was still faithful, gently prodded my heart to turn to Him. " Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest"
GENTLENESS-
This is the action of patience.. When I am patient, I act kindly and treat them kindly. When I treat Brooke unkindly I break her spirit and it breaks my heart. Her little face just melt in sadness because of my lack of SELF-CONTROL . It takes alot of self-control to be patient and act kindly and I have been working hard at all! My children are gifts from God and they deserve to be treated as such. 

Writing these all out makes me realize how intertwined each of of these fruits are!! It has been hard learning these lessons but the Lord is molding me into the wife and mother He desires me to be.  I am thankful that I am not left alone to figure this all out. What an amazing heavenly Father that is holding my hand the whole way. I am also so thankful for such a wonderful husband. I can say with all my heart that we will be together through better or worse, rich or poor, til death do us part.  By God's grace He brings our hearts closer together, love each other and helps us get through the hard times. A cord of three cannot be easily broken and this cord isn't getting broken any time soon.


Wow. For my first pictureless blog, this is pretty long!! I have some cute pictures of the kids so a blog with pictures will soon come :)