New neighbors

We got some new neighbors a couple months ago.  We have done a terrible job getting to know them but they are pretty funny. 

He is from New York City and hates the Patriots enough that he decorated our house with Denver Broncos gear the night before the league championship game. I didn't get a shot of the whole house, but he put streamers in several places. I was laughing but I texted him to make him feel bad about doing that to a poor sick pregnant lady whose husband was out of town. He said he felt bad for a little while but then figured out I was kidding.

I made Daniel clean it up when he got home from California later that day. We have spent the past week trying to figure out how to get them back. 

Belly Shot

 Here is a shot I took a few weeks ago when I was just over 23 weeks pregnant. 

I am almost 26 weeks now.

I am carrying this baby lower than I carried the other two, although I am starting to just get big all over as I close in on the third trimester. 

The second trimester has been so much better. No more nausea. Got the migraines under control with a prescription. And not too uncomfortable. I have been getting more fatigued, but that probably has more to do with Daniel being gone a lot than anything. I have gone from feeling little flutter movements to huge kicks that make my belly ripple and occasionally take my breath away. So far this baby doesn't move around as much as my other kids did. Really hoping this means she will also sleep a lot after she is born.

How we are all relating to this baby:

Me- feeling excited and anxious to meet this baby girl and find out what she is like even though I am only 2/3 of the way done cooking her. I am planning on the easiest baby ever. That's not setting myself up for disappointment, is it? 

Sadie- hugs my stomach and listens to the baby frequently. She likes to talk to the baby and remind her that Sadie is the biggest sister, Elise is the middle sister, and she is the baby sister. She also likes to imitate the sound of the heart beat since she heard it when she attended my last two prenatal appointments with me. 

Elise- thinks she can get to the baby through my belly button so she likes to push my shirt up and jam her fingers into my belly button. She also declares she has a baby in her belly and doesn't at all seem to notice how rotund my belly has become. 

Daniel- admits to not thinking about the baby much. He has never been one of those men who feels the pregnant belly and talks to the baby in utero. He is much more concerned about me. 

Daddy's Games

We go to all of Daniel's afternoon home games. We aim to get there in time for the girls to do the chicken dance on the court, which happens at the 12 minute media time out in the second half.  That works out best so Elise can nap and she won't get too restless. We love it when friends meet us at the game so all the kids can play on the stairs together. Once the game is over we enthusiastically sing the fight song, which the girls know all the hand motions for. Sadie knows about 1/3 of the lines and Elise knows to yell "gooooo Cougars!" at the end. In fact, she likes to randomly yell this a couple times each day. Then we make our way to the front to give the team high fives before they go into the locker room. The girls then run around on the court until I herd them into the team media room where we color on the dry erase game boards and drink Powerade until Daniel comes and turns a show on for us. 

At this particular game the opposing team had orange uniforms so she wanted them to win. She pouted on the stairs when I told her BYU was going to win. 

Playing school on the dry erase board while waiting for Daniel.

 Blurry chicken dance.

 Playing with the Sullivans on the stairs.

 Playing on the court. BYU is way more laid back about letting kids on the court. At UVU they stationed employees around the court to prevent people from walking on it after the game. 

The girls love to wear their BYU (or bayou) shirts to Dad's games.

Elise

Here is what Elise is like lately

Throwing a tantrum about getting out of the bath., lasting for 20 minutes after I drained the water

-acting more like a 2-year-old. We are getting some tantrums but I am hopeful they will dissipate with age. Given the fact that Elise is starting her big tantrums more than a year older than Sadie started hers, I know we can survive it.

-being hilarious. The other day she started talking in this weird voice. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "I am Donald Duck." It cracks us all up when she does her impression.

Cuddling with her blanket after a nap

-still taking good naps about 75% of the time. When she does nap it is usually between 2 and 3 hours. A couple of days each week she plays in her crib instead of napping. I don't want to ever put her in a real bed. Can't she just sleep in a crib forever?

-seems to be getting taller by the day. She is starting to outgrow her size 3T clothes. This confuses me. It doesn't seem like she is super tall, but she is going to be in 4T before she turns 3.

One her favorites- "booburries"

-is a great eater. I completely trust her eating. If she doesn't eat much at one meal I don't nag her because most of the time she eats a lot. She will frequently come back a half hour after a meal and ask where her food is if she didn't finish it. She also asks for snacks between meals. Sadie rarely asks for snacks so it still throws me off when Elise tells me she is hungry.

-knows all her letters, numbers and colors. We just discovered this last week. I assumed she knew some of them. But we pulled out some alphabet cards last week and Elise named each one correctly.

-getting more interested in the iPad/phones. She will still watch Sadie, but demands her own turns as well.

-not interested in potty-training. She loves to sit on the potty, wipe, flush, and wash her hands. Just no actual potty-ing occurs. I tried putting her in underwear last week and she was very confused when pee came out of her and she got all wet. She didn't like it. Maybe we'll try it again in a few weeks.

-enjoys playing pretend. She plays pretend with our toys but her favorite thing is to pretend to be someone else, usually a princess. She assigns everyone in the family a character. She will call us all by these names for hours. She generally calls Daniel "Flynn Ryder" more than she calls him dad. Her other new favorite is General Chang, since she is frequently pretending to be Mulan.

-is extremely independent. If I try to help her with something she usually undoes my action so she can do it herself. She also plays by herself a lot. She will go up in Sadie's room for a while. You can also almost always guarantee she is pooping if she stays by herself. The girl likes to poop in privacy.

-thinks my jewelry is her jewelry. On Sunday at church she insisted I take off my necklace so she could wear it. She also likes to spin in place until she falls down.

-hits and pushes more than Sadie. The girls have been duking it out more lately. Both of them hit and kick each other and the screaming volume increases until both of them are crying and hitting. I try not to get too involved. I want them to work it out, but if it gets to that point I have to send them to time-outs. They get over it pretty much immediately and go back to playing what they were playing.

-loves to put her toys "down for naps". Apparently that is the best thing in Elise's mind about being the mom. You get to tell other people when to sleep.

Sadie

Now that I have taken a nice long break from the blog I want to spend some time writing about my girls at their current stages of life. Let's start with Sadie.

Taking a break while pretending to be a BYU cheerleader. 

Apparently they perform shirtless?

 -loves to sing and dance. Her songs are frequently improvised with words about whatever she is playing make-believe with at the moment. Her dancing is equally amazing. I turn Pandora on and she performs on the stage, which is, obviously, the tile in front of the fireplace.

-is a very conscientious student. It seems like she is a very similar student to me as a child. She follows rules precisely and is very concerned with getting anything wrong. She is hesitant to try anything that seems too hard for her. I am trying to loosen her up about school a little.  

Fell asleep on the 6 minute drive to dance class 

-is very excited to be taking a dance class again. After trying a couple of classes at a private studio in Pleasant Grove, I was pleasantly surprised that Sadie chose the hip-hop class. The more serious class was way over Sadie's head (and ability) and I am glad she chose the more fun class. Don't worry, she still wears ballet clothes to hip hop class.

 

Ice cream rewards for good behavior during various things

-has greatly improved in behavior. Sadie has been throwing crazy tantrums since she was about 17 months old. In the past 6 months the number of tantrums has decreased dramatically and she has become a much better listener and helper. When Elise is upset Sadie frequently tries to help by sharing or coming up with fun ideas. I am looking forward to having her help with the baby. She likes to tell people I am tired because I have a baby in my tummy.

-constantly asks for play dates.

On Facebook, which probably won't even exist when Sadie is involved with social media

-is a great reader. I have no idea how she compares to most kids her age but her reading has gotten really good since she started school. Her teacher told me that she is now sending home 1st grade level books for Sadie. Today I had to help Sadie with 3 words from her school book.

-has a hard time with sudden new things or changes. On the first day of the new year in Primary she freaked out because she didn't want to be a CTR-4. She doesn't like that she sits on a different row, has a new teacher, and new classroom. We completely forgot to tell her these things would change. She also has some anxiety about being in front of a big group unexpectedly. We have been at a few things where they invite kids to come up and dance or do something in front of people. Sadie will get excited about it and then cry. At Daniel's home games they invite all the kids to come down to the court to do the chicken dance during a time-out. At the first game Sadie went out there and cried. But now it is is one of her favorite parts of the game.

-is an expert sign-maker. She likes to make notes like the ones above. One day she wrote out lists of all the people allowed in each room. She decided that she and Elise are not allowed in each other's rooms. She loves Dad the most and taped that last one by his side of the bed. A couple days ago she got mad at me and ran to make some special signs. The first one said "I not love you" with a picture of her being mad and me crying. The second one said "I love Dad" with pictures of her and Daniel smiling. Today she made new signs that clarified she loves me and she does want me to be her mom.

-is branching out in favorite colors. For a long time Sadie's favorite color was pink and only pink. She would cry if she had to have a blue plate or utensil at a meal. Around Halloween she decided orange is her favorite color. She also no longer throws tantrums about dish/utensil colors. Thank goodness.

Craft master

-enjoys coloring and crafting. We go through so much paper! And I feel bad, but I usually just throw away her creations. We don't have room for 15 new pictures a day.

 

Pattern blocks and Magna-tiles

-loves anything and everything princess. Although, she got several different block-related toys for Christmas that she has been playing with. Magna-tiles are so cool and she has started to branch out in what she makes. At first she would only try to build things that they had pictures of on the box. We also spend a few hours each week playing with pattern blocks. I am weird and I still love pattern blocks so I don't mind playing with them with her.

-wakes up at the crack of dawn every day. She comes into our room between 5:30 and 6:15 and wants to snuggle in our bed. Usually about a half hour later we kick her out with the iPad and tell her to watch shows.

Baby Addawade

 Rewind to the end of 2013. Alicia, Bryce and Adelaide came to visit one day during their trip to Utah. Sadie was very excited to hold her all by herself. Elise didn't show too much interest but she now points to every picture of a baby in our house and calls it "baby Addawade".  I was happy that my kids very clearly remembered Alicia and Bryce. It has been a year and a half since they moved so I wasn't sure how Elise would feel, but she still has a soft spot for that silly goose Bryce. 

 Sadie keeps telling me about how she held Adelaide and she is going to hold her new baby sister too. She has started carrying Elise around, which basically means, hoisting Lou 4 inches off the ground and walking until they both fall down. 

Baby Adelaide was adorable and smelled like spit-up, which is nostalgic for me. It was fun to hold a small baby, since it has been a while since any of my friends have had kids. 

That night after Adelaide was in bed, Alicia and Bryce came back and hung out with us for a while. We miss having them in Utah. 

Ramblings

By the way this blog has looked in 2014 you'd think I was 6 months pregnant with 2 crazy young kids and a husband who is never home or something.

First, let's talk about January. January is the worst month of the year. For sure. How is it only January 17th? This month drags forever. February is only a few days shorter but it always goes fast. My mom comes to visit, spring is just a few weeks away, and I can almost taste the end of the basketball season.

Second, let's talk about being sick while pregnant. Not pregnancy-related illness, but a terrible cold. This is very unfair.

Third, I need to acknowledge how grateful I am that it hasn't snowed in a couple of weeks. December was a super cold/snowy month and this January hasn't been as bad.

Fourth, I have no desire to cook delicious meals, but I have strong desires to eat delicious meals. Who wants to come remedy this problem?

Fifth, why are all maternity pants terrible?