Hello Again

So much for blogging more. Life has been crazy, as it just is for everyone I'm sure. I will say what I am sure I have said and will say again: Being a mom is harder than I ever imagined.

Life is hard, but I still have air in my lungs, head just above water. I won't publicly whine about the many things that have been making life feel harder lately - just want you to know when I post cute pictures of my girls that though they are adorable and I mostly try to capture our best memories - our life is not perfect, and if you don't hear from me for a while it is probably because I am just a tad bit overwhelmed with daily living to blog too much about it. But I'm not giving up - so here's a random post for today.

Today I was so grateful to have Mike around to help me wrangle Super Squirmy during her diaper change death rolls because my arm and back have been killing me for the past week or so and I really don't know how I'm going to rest it so it can get better and take care of my baby at the same time. Pinched nerve/carpal tunnel type pain I get periodically that makes it hurt to even pick up a plate. Hope my chiropractor can work his miracles when I go to see him next week. Or any type of miracle that could be worked even sooner would be most welcome!

Today we watched the last sessions of general conference and Lily (4 going on 5) made beautiful coloring pages for all of us almost totally within the lines, sang her own made up hymns, listened to and commented on some of the talks, and told me she loves conference! (Even after 4 two hour long sessions over 2 days. That seemed like forever when I was little.) Yay! Sharing my love of it with my kid! I think the homemade cinnamon roll tradition I've started has helped.

Today I was uplifted by the spirit as I listened to the prophet and apostles speak the words of God. President Monson was cracking me up with all his exaggerated facial expressions, and I especially loved Elder Holland's talk this afternoon about belief and faith. It felt liberating. Like a load off my self-inflicted feelings of inadequacy. He talked about being true to the faith we do have not letting doubts lead us. And there were a few gems - I quote: "Remember in this world everyone is to walk by faith so be kind regarding human frailty. Your own, as well as those who serve with you in a church led by volunteer mortal men and women. Except in the case of his only perfect begotten son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but he deals with it. So should we." What a wonderful conference. You can watch it all HERE.

Today we walked over to Lily's future elementary school to see how long it will take us to walk there when she begins - in August! Yikes! Kindergarten! Not too bad of a walk - 16 minutes just taking our time. Lily was disappointed that the playground was locked up so we couldn't play there, we played Princess ball in the backyard and she put a Roly Poly on the bridge of her nose.

Today Lily took her first mud bath in the backyard and I didn't get a picture of it! Mike was on the phone with his mom and I was nursing the baby inside - Mike had her hosed off and in a bath before I even thought of it.

Today Sierra watched part of conference too, stuck everything she could in her mouth, and played peekaboo with a bib, a blanket, and her dad's baseball cap. Pulling them up and down herself and giggling in the cutest way whenever you caught her eye.

Today Sierra stood up on her own without holding on to anything about a million times, promptly falling back down half of them. And crawled around super fast in the grass making gremlin noises.

Tonight Sierra showed us some crazy sitting down dance moves when Lily turned on her Choo Choo song tonight and got so excited she stood up even more and tried walking around while Lily ran circles around her. When it was bedtime and we switched to a lullaby - she wasn't too happy because she still wanted to be bopping to the beat, and there wasn't one.

Tonight it took a while to get the girls to sleep, but once they were I just stood there and marveled at their beauty and thought of a favorite phrase of my parents: "They're so sweet - when they're asleep." It is so true. I have the most beautiful daughters. It's super hard and all consuming and sometimes I think I'm just too tired to be a mom, but I love them so much! What could be better?

10 months!

It's hard to believe in just 2 short months Sierra will be a whole year old!

She is such a sweet happy baby. Not that she is perfectly easy...

In some ways we can't wait for her to grow up a bit and not require the same degree of supervision, but the baby stage is such a sweet one I will be sad when she isn't one anymore too!

Some random things about Sierra:

She is very independent - she plays well on her own as long as someone is in the same area as she is. But she loves her big sister and loves getting attention from and watching her. She's been going through the physical stages very fast. It seems like she rolled over one day, sat up the next, and then started working at crawling. She started trying to crawl at 6 months and once she got that down she started to climb. She's been cruising around on stuff and standing for brief periods already so we're pretty sure she'll be walking soon! She has 7 teeth - 4 on top, 3 on bottom and a cute toothy grin. She does not like to be penned in. She wants to explore everything, taste everything, and prefers feeding herself - especially baby puffs. She's fast when she really wants to get somewhere and if you chase behind her to catch up to her she will start to laugh! She will silently start pulling out a whole box of tissues, or laundry from a hamper if you are not watching and stopping her. She does not cooperate for diaper changes, she squirms, she rolls, she fights it all the way - to my dismay! 

She has the cutest laugh and a very social smile. She is waving now, too. No for sure first words, but a lot of close sounds. She may have said "Dada," "puffs," "baby" and a few other words, but it's so hard to tell for sure. She looks like she is trying to communicate sometimes. She points at stuff and says "dat." And will say "Uh....uh" to get someone's attention when they walk into a room so she can smile at them, almost like hi. We sign "all done" (along with some other signs) with her at meal times and think she is starting to sign it back. She still wakes up 1 or 2 times per night. I am trying to get her to go back down without fully feeding her, but it's been tough. It takes me a lot longer to get her back down because I'm dozing off trying to get her back to sleep. (Can't wait to get a full night's sleep again!) She loves to pull on her own hair while she nurses, and mine, and put my hair and doll's hair in her mouth. She would still rather eat a book than read it with us. She does not take a binky, but sometimes likes to chew on them - backwards and every which way. I'm debating about trying to push one at night - she doesn't need it during the day - picking her up or picking her up and moving her to a new environment will calm her down pretty much immediately when she is upset. I walk around with her on my hip a bit too much probably just because it's the easiest way to keep her out of trouble. She's a darling and we can't wait to get to know her even better as she grows!

  Love you, baby girl!

First Foods

I checked out this book Baby Love from the library and have been making some homemade baby food for Sierra. She really liked the butternut squash. She does not like peas! Lily never did either. I actually came across it online when I was checking out valentine themed books for Lily and figured I could use a refresher, or let's face it - a better approach to introducing solids than however we did it with Lily. It turned out to be a book about making your own home made baby food. Sounded good to me. Bound to taste better and be cheaper than the store bought jarred stuff, and maybe Sierra wouldn't end up as picky as Lily! I started with the basics and loved the simple instructions that tell you just how many or what size of produce you need to buy, and ended up with 2 ice cube trays of each type of puree. To begin I made sweet potato, butternut squash, pear and applesauce with pomegranate juice for an extra little kick of nutrition, peas, and carrots. Lily even likes the pear and apple sauces and tried the sweet potato much to my surprise. Most of the recipes took hardly any time to make, and once frozen, it's so easy to just thaw out an ice cube of food to feed Sierra along with the baby cereals. I'm sort of jealous. The food smells and tastes really good - if only we could all eat so simply, quickly and nutritiously!

I'm loving homemade baby food!

I got a great tip from another mom I met at the park that I just love - about making my own yogurt melts by squirting little dabs of yogurt onto a sheet of wax paper and freezing it, then popping them off into a little container to store. I'd never thought of that - they sell freeze dried ones at the store. Sierra has not taken to yogurt the way Lily did as a baby, and even Lily doesn't really like it anymore. Well, the day I heard about it I made some to use up the Yo baby yogurt I had bought that it didn't seem like my kids were going to eat. That whole fat 'baby' yogurt is not cheap and I hated to see it wasted. Sierra loves being able to pick them up to feed herself, and even Lily likes them. I guess it tastes better frozen! I'm glad to have another easy pick up food for Sierra and to get some probiotics into both of my girls.

In the Soup

Anyway as we started getting low, and as Sierra is getting older I decided to make some more of the recipes. I checked out the book again, picked out a few different things to try and made a shopping list. This morning I started cooking. First I made some blueberry chocolate chip zucchini muffins because it had been a while and we love 'em! I love making healthy & delicious things for my family! Then when Sierra went down for her morning nap I busted out the stuff for "Alba's Chicken Soup." Lily was my little helper - until she decided to branch out into her own recipes for Lamby and Lisa's birthday party with my leftover veggie scraps. She was pretty interested watching me cook and de-bone the chicken and even wanted to start a little bone collection. I vetoed that, but was glad she wasn't as squeamish about the chicken carcass as I was most of my life.

Well, thank goodness Sierra took an extra long nap (hopefully I will not be paying for that tonight) because it turned out to be a long day of cooking! The chicken soup recipe they rave about in this book is packed full of vegetables! I had no idea how long it was going to take - or how much it was going to make! Just like the other recipes it ends with "..pour into 2 ice cube trays, wrap and freeze" I figured it would probably make a bit more soup that we could try too, or I could puree it all and have maybe double the amount to freeze, but I obviously didn't look and think about it that closely. By the end I had to separate it into 2 big stock pots and puree it batch after batch after batch in the blender to get it all done and a good consistency. My pot and the blender brimming with green chicken soup puree, I began to pour my trays. I only had 3 ready. I only have 4 total.

...Well, it's time to go shopping for more because with my three trays full I still had a full pot that filled up my largest Tupperware container! I don't want to dump that many ice cubes from the trays into freezer bags because I think by the time we get to use them all there will be too much freezer-burn. I certainly don't want to waste it! But that is a lot of the same kind of baby food to make and store and feed to one little baby who hasn't even tried it yet. I was so frustrated! All this work, all my efforts to save money and make nutritious food for my family and it wasn't even looking too appetizing! Mike was cracking jokes about inviting all my family over for dinner and telling me to take pictures so we could laugh about it later, but I was ready to cry. Ok, I did (briefly) cry. Sierra better learn to like this stuff because it is about to be her staple! It actually tastes pretty good if you add a little salt - I ate a whole bowl of it and wasn't grossed out - so I surely won't let it go to waste. And I feel a little more hopeful about the baby liking it after eating it than I did after seeing the bulk of it swimming there before me and her initial test face...

DRAMATIZATION

...but by the time we get through it - I'm not sure I will be making it ever again! Sometimes I feel like I just can't win. Seriously - I have too many stories of good ideas gone bad! But all is not lost - and I do love homemade baby food...we are just swimming in soup!

...And messes of toys, but they are worth it!

A Little Lily Logic

Today my mom was working out a chemistry problem so she could help one of the visually impaired students that she teaches and she mentioned moles. Lily asked some kind of question about moles that prompted her uncle to clarify "Not the animal moles, moles can also be a unit of measurement." Without hesitating Lily replied: "Oh, you mean like inch worms!" 

I love the way Lily puts 2 and 2 together :) 

Earlier when were out shopping she saw a Starbucks sign and asked me if C-O-F-F-E-E spelled coffee. It's so exciting for me that she is starting to see words around her and figure out what they say! Our hard work is paying off! I've been telling her for awhile that someday...once she'd been reading long enough... she wouldn't be able to not read all the words she saw around her. Yesterday I left her a note at her place at the table to read when she got back from the bathroom - while I ran upstairs for a few minutes. The note said: 

  Lily, 

   Time to 

   clean up!

     ♥, Mom

She read it. She did not start cleaning...but did I really expect that!? She was excited about reading a note addressed to her, excited enough to take and show it to her Dad later, but not that excited apparently :)

To the beach!

Love that it is March and we could spend a beautiful day by the ocean! One of my favorite things about living here! Not that it couldn't be cold and rainy tomorrow. Southern CA is so unpredictable in the spring. But we made the most of today! Spent a few hours anyway - it was just perfect. We met some friends from church, ate lunch, talked, dug in the sand, shot a few pictures and headed home. Last time Sierra went to the beach she was only a few months old and sleeping under a nursing cover most of the time. It was so fun to see her get her toes in the sand and watch her Dad dip her into the water. I thought it was cold, but she loved it! Lily was mostly too fast to photograph, having a blast with her friends - she's always dodging my camera - so that's why there are more photos of Sierra these days. I have the hand in front of the face shots to prove it to her. Sierra hasn't learned to dodge yet, but she is pretty good at making a wrestling match out of a diaper change! ...Some photos from today!