it's been said

I try to write down all the excellent and ridiculously complete sentences that fall out of Annabelle's mouth, but I know that I'm forgetting so many. But as I've whined about, my brain doesn't store much information these days. So unless I write it down immediately, it's lost to the winds of silly sayings. Here are a few I've managed to get down. Some of these make us laugh just because they sound so grown up. Which she is much too quickly becoming. Ack!

Don't make a panda bear in your mouth! Make a kitty! {after I RAWR like a lion at her}
+

I wiped my boogers on the floor. {after I ask her what she just wiped on the floor, at least she's honest?}
+ 

{while getting ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa Cheney's house}
Did you tell Daddy we're going to his parents? {Whaaa?}
+

{after we asked her what the new stroller was for [our cross country trip]} For my babies!
+

I want chicken nuggets, a hamburger, and a san-ich. I want bowf.
+

{when we turn into McDonald's} Hey, it's Old McDonald's!
+

I want the deer song that I like. {Do-Ray-Me from Sound of Music}
+

Ray, a drop and goaden suuuunnn....Fah, a way I long to go...Sew, a needle fulling bread...
{our favorite lines from Do-Ray-Me [she sings the other lines correct, so they're not as funny]}
+

{after asking her which present I should buy Daddy for his birthday} Let's get bowf!
+

{the window on Belle's side in the car doesn't go up or down}
Mommy, my window won't shut. Let's get batteries and fix it.
+
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how 'bout wonder what you are.

Me: Where do you live?

Annabelle: In Gatlinburg, by mysewf.

Me: Oh, and where does Mommy live?

Annabelle: Ummmm, in St. George, by hersewf.

Me: And where does Daddy live?

Annabelle: In...Salt Lake! By hisself.

serious business

So sometimes you get so caught up in taking the photo, you don't actually see what's happening in the photo. Until you upload it. And then you see the baby was working on some serious business. Cracks me up.

In all seriousness though, these two girls are becoming fast friends. Lou loves loves to watch everything her big sister does. She's smiley and happy whenever Annabelle includes her in anything. And Annabelle is the big sister I had hoped she'd be. She's sweet and loving and will do anything to help Lydia be happy. She's learned the art of the magic binky and is quick to plop it in whenever Lou's sad and I can't get to her fast enough. She loves to "hold" her and kiss her. She shares her toys with her and tells me all the time about when Lydia gets big enough to play with her. And maybe the cutest thing is when I catch her breathing in Lou's smell. Just like I do, she buries her nose in Lydia's head (because there isn't enough hair yet) and breathes in that pretty, baby smell.

I'm so glad they have each other. Even more, I'm so glad I have them.

daddy and lou

There are few things I love more

than seeing my girls with their daddy.

It's possibly the cutest thing in the world.

These girls are so very loved.

I know that Jess would eventually like a boy.

But you'll never hear him complain

a single minute about these girls.

They are his heart.

And it makes me so happy.

 

plans

photo: Casey Niederhauser

Way more actually.

The plan was to go on a safe date.
No pressure - he lived across the country.

Instead I found my safe place.

And married him.

Four years ago today.

Thank heavens for best laid plans.

:)

love

She's been dressing herself for quite some time, but this time
she insisted on actually wearing her fashion choices to the store.

(Thankfully, I talked her out of the sandals and sock option.)

With such an apparent budding fashion sense, I thought it

best that I grab the camera for documentation purposes:

As you can see, she's pretty much rocking it.

And then this happened:

So glad I had the camera ready.

So glad.

Oh, how I love these people.

fall(ish)

 

So it looks more like winter than any sort of fall around here. But I'm told it won't last, that fallish temperatures will begin appearing on barometers around the valley next week. That said, the pretty leaves are likely gone by now. Either by wind, rain, or snow. Thank heavens Jess is a maniac and spent two weekends taking photos. These are a very random selection, photos I pulled as I uploaded photos of the girls. The man is talented. And honestly, those leaves do my soul so much good. Fall is such a beautiful reminder that change can indeed be good and beautiful. Most of the time change is hard, and I prefer to avoid it; but fall reminds me that maybe I should embrace it once in a while. Because look how much beauty the trees gain when they do.

 

 

wait, what?

Let's talk about my memory these days.

Wait. What did I just say?

No seriously. That's how my life is. It's driving me INSANE. It's a side effect of a hyper thyroid. (Hashimoto's disease generally causes an underactive thyroid. But it's rebounding after pregnancy and having a gay ol' time being hyperactive instead, a whole new set of symptoms that I'm really not used to.) I'm told it will correct itself as my brain stops fighting my overactive thyroid. But honestly, it's driving me insane. For example, I forgot that I just said that exact phrase, "driving me insane," three sentences ago. ARG. I hate redundancy in writing, yet I'm fully aware that I'm regularly redundant. Why? Because I'm often missing half my vocabulary. At least I can still alliterate. (Is that a verb?)

I forget things within a time span of thirty seconds. I feel so stupid all the time. The memory loss isn't large, as in I remember how to drive a car or cut an onion, how to dress my children and keep them fed. And I know their names and their faces and their perfect eyes (seriously - their eyes!). But the small things disappear out of my mind constantly. Words are regularly completely absent, thoughts are sometimes impossibly hard to finish. I stare at my computer screen for full minutes sometimes, just trying to recall why I opened it in the first place. And finishing a single task is nearly impossible. I start one thing and then start another and then another until I notice the first thing is undone and then attempt to finish that. Or when someone text messages or emails me, I fully intend to promptly respond, but I generally can't keep my brain focused enough to do it until several hours later when I've recalled it many times and force myself to complete the task.

Losing. My. Marbles.

So if I seem to be a little slow these days, it's because I AM.

the first snow?!

 

So just a few hours ago, I looked out the window and saw...SNOW. And because I'm a huge fan of snow, I announced it to Annabelle and Lydia. Annabelle, a girl of my heart, responded frantically while jumping up, "Let'sgooutside...and Iwearmycoat...and Iplayin thesnow!! Snow! The groundisgonna bewhite!" And she ran away to find her pants (because she's usually pantless at home, what?) and yelled at me to get her coat. Seriously. She did this.

 

And so I bundled up the babies and took them out for the first snow. As I've mentioned, pregnancy causes a bi-polar switch in me and I don't like the snow. At. All. But the good news is I'M NOT PREGNANT. And snow is beautiful and lovely again.

 

 

Belle went and stomped through the white, while her little sister sat by - quite unimpressed, might I add. Perhaps she'll share her father's love of snow. Which is nonexistent. Shame.

 

 

I realize that my fall foliage has probably been destroyed, but I have memory cards full of fall foliage to sort through still. And for now, we'll enjoy the snow.

let's get together (yeah, yeah, yeah)

So we've never had a family photo taken. Ever.

You can blame me for this for the most part. I had no desire to document the chub that happened after Annabelle. In hindsight, of course, I regret it somewhat as we really don't have a family photo with our one baby family. But let's be honest - I wouldn't hang my chub on a wall anyhow. This year, with the amazing foliage changing color (a post is forthcoming - Jess has been busy), my father-in-law called for family photos. Jess scouted out a place up Big Cottonwood Canyon, everyone brought their cameras, and we took some pictures. They turned out great, especially with four babies to wrangle:

{Jess and his siblings don't look related. Good luck guessing.}

And then I had Jess put on a matching shirt and we took some timed photos with the tripod. So I suppose we still haven't had official pictures taken - you know, ones with a photographer and such - but these do the trick. The price was right and honestly, I really love them. 

{Photo without both sun glare and a smile from Belle.}

{Photo with sun glare and a smile [of sorts] from Belle.}

Except those pesky ten or twenty pounds I could really stand to lose. But like most problems in life, I blame said pounds on the thyroid. You might blame it on my cookie dough consumption. Tomato, tomatah.

{Photo wherein I intentionally crop my gut off but make it look artistic with a little extra processing.}

question and answer

So it seems a little early for this, but Annabelle has started the "Where does BLANK come from?" questions. It's often about her clothes or the food we're eating. But sometimes her questions are pretty random. We were driving up the canyon, and Belle asked us where the trees came from. Then she asked where the houses came from. I let Jess field that one. "Well, some people go to work like me...and when they go to work...they make houses?"

Yesterday, she came up to me and asked, "Mommy, where do babies come from?"

I'm. Not. Even. Kidding.

My mind instantly flashed through the many awkward conversations I had with my mom as a teenager. Oh the disgustingness of it all. So I took a deep breath and said, "When a daddy loves a mommy very much..."

Just kidding. I told her they come from heaven. Because heaven knows that answer makes much more sense than the conversation we'll have when she's a teenager.