Frustration

That is frequently a good word to describe my relationship with Sadie. I feel like I stay patient and I make a lot of progress with her behavior. Then she throws some insane tantrum or refuses to share with anyone and I lose my patience. I wonder if her inconsistency is because of something I do. Anyone have any techniques they feel like are effective in dealing with/lessening tantrums, or do I need to just ride it out? Do I expect too much out of her? I don't feel like I do because most of my friends' 2-year-olds are much better behaved than Sadie.
Feel free to tell me I am just being dramatic. That's always a possibility.

Anyway,  I'll share some funny pictures of Sadie lately because even though she frustrates me, she makes me laugh all the time too.

One of her new favorite activities- "tyting" on the "puter"

 Cheesing it with full on Harry-hair in effect

I had to hide the Cinderella costume because Sadie wants to wear it everywhere, including in the bath. She still mentions how she let Brizzy wear it one time. That was a huge deal to her, and she actually only let her wear half of the costume.

Today we watched Kung Fu Panda and during one scene where a mean character was fighting a good character Sadie kept yelling "no!" and telling the mean guy to "go away!". I could not stop giggling.

Seven

The Louie Gooer is 7 months old. I don't have a whole lot more to add to what I have said about her before. She is super smiley, doesn't sleep very well, and is constantly getting into everything around her. I should mention that for the past week we have been letting her cry it out at night and she is getting better! She is a very different baby than Sadie. She seems to be much more curious about her surroundings. She desperately wants all the food the rest of us eat. She has dive bombed food in my hands multiple times. She tries to take whatever Sadie plays with. It makes me laugh really hard.

 Talking to the camera

 Reaching for the camera

Sun-face baby       &         Stripe-face baby

 She does have a few new tricks- sitting up alone and holding her own bottle.

Elise generally makes everyone happier around her.. We are so glad she's ours.

Decking Our Halls

Decorating our house for Christmas has been more of a process than an event. On Friday night we got our first ever Christmas tree. I am still excited about it. This is the first year we will not be traveling for the holidays so we got a beautiful, real, some-kind-of-fir tree. We thought it was absolutely gorgeous when we picked it out, and it is, but we didn't notice the dead spots (on the back side) and how the trunk is crooked (really crooked) until we got home. 

(Mom, here is a picture from the front door so you can see exactly how we set it up)

We rearranged our entire living room to fit the tree in front of the window. I really like the new set-up and I think we'll leave it this way after we take the tree down. All the rearranging, cleaning where furniture used to be, and picking up/setting up the tree took a while so we just went to bed once the tree was up.

On Saturday I put up some more decorations but we didn't have enough lights to cover the tree so I had to go buy more.

 On Sunday night we finally got the lights up and Sadie hung the ornaments she picked out on the tree.

 Then she got distracted by the twirl-ability of her Christmas "princess dress" she wore to church that day. Here she is mid twirl.

 While Sadie was hanging her ornaments, Elise was sitting on Daniel's shoulders. Every time Daniel leaned back Elise laughed hysterically.

 Elise looked like she was having so much fun that Sadie insisted on having a turn. She tried to pretend it was fun, but she just couldn't see why Elise liked it so much. She quickly got down and told Elise she could have another turn..

This is the video I shot of Elise's second turn:

Turkey Day

We drove up to Bountiful to have Thanksgiving dinner with my John relatives in the clubhouse at my grandmother's apartment complex. My brother Matt chose to sleep in a friends' dorm room until 2 PM and not bring his phone with him, so unfortunately, he got left behind. Ah, the life of an 18-year-old boy. Sad day for him, but I was actually kind of happy because Ben and Hillary came in my car with me and kept me awake as I drove. 

When we got there Sadie went out to play on the playground with her cute second cousin Olivia. Within 10 minutes Sadie was calling her "Liv", "Livie" and even called her "Livie Lou". Sadie and Olivia were hilarious together. Sadie did not stop giggling for 3 hours straight. Olivia is mild-mannered and well-behaved and Sadie is pretty much the opposite. Most of the time Olivia was happy to follow Sadie's lead, but at one point Olivia told Sadie to "stop it", because she was getting a little too wild. My cousin took a bunch of pictures of the girls playing. Here are a few.

 

 

 What the toddlers did instead of eating dinner

 Eating their extra cookies stolen from the dessert table (after they had each been given one from Grandma)

Meeting Santa

On Tuesday I was looking for something fun to kick off the Thanksgiving break right. I decided to check out the lights at the Riverwoods and then use the free carousel ride coupons I had for the Provo Beach Resort. Mimi, Paco and Whitney came along. 

 (Blurry people, but a good illustration of some of the light displays)

 When we got there we found out that not only were the lights gorgeous, but Santa was there! I am definitely not one to bring my child to see Santa before Thanksgiving, but he was giving out free little toys and you know I was all over that. My pictures are terrible quality because I only had my phone with me.

 Lou was impressed by Santa from her stroller

 Sadie loved the "sparkle" (flashing) icicle lights

Then Sadie got to ride the carousel twice. While the rest of us were eating ice cream Sadie took Paco and explored the rest of the Provo Beach Resort. After watching the bowlers for a while she quite confidently strode up to the lanes, picked up a ball, and threw it. Luckily I stopped it before it really went down the lane but I was surprised that she even able to lift it.

All in all it was a great night. I thought about hiding this gem of a holiday activity from all of you. It is super cheap and fun. Free to walk around and see the lights and the different artistic fire pits. Free live music. Free Santa (and you can take whatever pictures you want- in fact, they don't even have someone there to take pictures and put pressure on you to buy them). Free gift from Santa. Free carousel ride (with a coupon- but it is only $1 normally). 

What's a blog post from me without some sarcasm or complaining? Too bad this turned out to be the best activity of the whole break. The fun level significantly dropped since Elise and I both got sick and Daniel has been in Arizona all week. I swear Sadie senses that I don't feel good and she has been horribly behaved the past couple days. 

Grateful

 This Thanksgiving I am especially grateful for the life of Holland Cottle. Her unexpected death has really, really affected me. I am not sure if it is because Nick and Lexie are some of our closest friends, or that I have daughters the same age as Briz and Holland, or maybe that up until now our married lives have seemed so parallel to the Cottles (starting with those 3 months we lived together as married couples- hilariously weird but actually fun) or just the plain fact of how tragic her passing is. Probably a combination of all of them, but in any event, I have spent a lot of time crying and thinking about Holland and her family.

In my blog post about my trip to Portland for Holland's funeral I laid out 3 general ways I wanted to change my life. These changes came about from all the different thoughts and feelings I had in the week or so after Holland's death. In order to accomplish these changes I have set individual goals related to each one. I started small, with at least one goal attached with each of the 3 things. I tried to set goals that would make an impact but not be too big and too outside myself that I wouldn't do them. Like if I set the goal I wasn't going to make fun of Daniel anymore I would fail within the first 10 minutes. Each day I record at least one thing I did that day to meet my goals. I'll give you one example: "11/9/2011- Stayed completely patient while at the doctor's office and had to wait an hour and a half to see her. She was delivering a baby so there really wasn't anything they could do to speed it up. It was crazy how much more calm and patient Sadie stayed when I wasn't tense and annoyed. She was really good and just played with toys the whole time. Never thought about how me getting annoyed with other people makes Sadie feel/act. (be more kind)" As my current goals become more routine I will set more goals relating to these 3 changes. Maybe I will mention them again in the future so you all can hold me accountable.

So we are exactly 3 weeks into these goals and I have already seen changes. I think the biggest change has been in Sadie's behavior. Daniel tells me I attribute too much to these goals, but I totally disagree. Many of my goals are related to parenting and my relationship/interactions with my girls. One of the goals is to leave the TV off completely when Sadie is awake. It's not like I was letting Sadie watch a ton of kid's shows before, but we almost always had the TV on in the background. We aren't going cold turkey; she is allowed to watch one tv show and one movie each day if she thinks of it and asks, which she normally doesn't. We have DVR so we can just record any shows we want to watch after Sadie is in bed. My original thought with this goal was just that we watched too much tv in our house and it was one way I could keep my family closer (change #3). The effect of this goal has been that I am so much more present and engaged with Sadie (and Elise too). Now that it is off I really play with my girls, not distracted, half-watching HGTV play. I give them close, one-on-two attention. This, in combination with a few other goals has worked wonders with Sadie's attitude.

I don't write this post to brag. I do not qualify for bragging rights in any area of my life (except maybe my Boggle skills- I am really good at Boggle). I write this post to recognize that Holland has pushed me to make these changes- some that I realized I needed to make, others that I didn't. It's really too bad that it has taken a tragedy like this to get me going, but I will always be grateful for Holland and the changes she inspired me to make in myself and my family.

Randoms

Just some random pics from recent weeks I wanted to include on the blog.

Attending Daniel's first game of the season

 Note Sadie resting her elbow on Ben's shoulder

 Elise destroyed the protective paper on the exam table so I put her in her car seat/stroller while we waited

 Sadie entertained herself by finding every single measuring tape (even one the nurses had been missing for weeks)

 Painting pumpkins (never mind that it was after Halloween). Note Sadie's sweet point

A happy girl