Too fast!

Somehow seemingly overnight Lil went from being this little (well okay, adorably chunky) immobile baby to one that is everywhere and into everything! While she isn't technically crawling forward, she army crawls forward pretty well and scoots herself backward too. She pivots herself in circles and is relying much more on forward/backward motion than flipping to get to where she wants to go. This new world of movement has presented new challenges with wanting to get into anything and everything she can get her hands on. She is particularly fond of Keira's toys (most of which are fine of her but some of which are too small for her) and Alli's toys (yuck!). She still prefers exploring on her own on the ground but is becoming more fond of "walking" while holding onto your hands too. She especially loves falling forward into your arms, and makes lots of happy noises and sounds when she's moving and grooving. She is still enjoying three big girl meals a day, enjoying lots of different solids & foods, along with nursing to keep up with all this activity! She is becoming known for her loud screeching while eating to express her enjoyment over food. At 7.5 months she's eating MANY more foods than her sister was even attempting at this point. While I love to see her grow, change and explore, I only wish I could freeze time and make it slow down!!! 

Baking with the Big Girl

For the past three Thursday nights Aaron has gone to play soccer with a friend in the evenings. Secretly (or okay, not so secretly anymore), I love this time. I get Baby Ister down for bed and then Keira and I scramble into the kitchen to make a huge baking mess. Tonight we conquered three recipes (2 new, 1 tried and true). We made kale brownies (sounds weird but Y-U-M), peanut butter balls (wasn't impressed with this particular recipe), and mocha chocolate bites. All were from a website I've been using a lot lately called chocolatecoveredkatie.com. She has oodles of healthy dessert recipes, and I have loved/tweaked many of them. Anyway, more on the healthy desserts, etc in blogs to come, but tonight I just want to remember our baking night...

For starters, I don't get a ton of one-on-one time with Keira. You'd be surprised by that since I stay home all day with her, but there's just very little time (if at all) in a day that it's just one of the girls awake. So, I cherish my one on one time with each of them when I can get it. She has shown an interest in baking, which makes her baking mama happy. She helps me collect all the ingredients and "reads" the recipe for me. She pours (i.e. dumps/spills) the ingredients in the bowl for me. She tests ingredients while we are baking. Tonight as I turned my back to get something else, she decided to add "just a lil extra salt, mommy, just a littttttttlllle extra". Thankfully it all landed in one spot that could easily be scooped up with by a spoon! She loves this time and so do I. :)

Tonight she got completely covered in chocolate, and as I looked at the clock realizing it was nearing 9 (whoops) and she was a mess, the kitchen was a mess and I hadn't showered yet today I realized the easiest solution was to stick her in the shower with me. This is one of those ah-ha, DUH parenting things that I don't know WHY I haven't done til now, but I guess it's mostly because my girl loves her baths so much. Anyway, all is clean, the shower was "SOOOO cool Mommy!! lots of water splashing EV-ER-RE where" and the little girl is tucked in bed. When we did our book, and prayer and song tonight before I stuck her into bed, she took my face in her little hands, and said, "Thank you Mommy." Melt my heart. Thank YOU Keira for such a fun night, and thank you Lord for blessing me with this beautiful girl. 

Let's try this again...

Well, it's high time I started writing again. I have three random blogs that I've posted a handful of entries to, but I've decided to give this particular one another go. I am sure of two things: I don't know what I want my focus to be (though my original thought of a modge podge blog will do for now) and I likely will go through spells where I won't write. I am doing this primarily to have a place to record life, but who knows what path this will take...

I have four or five posts up in my brain right now, but for fear of going hog wild at the beginning and puttering out (something I have a tendancy to do), we'll keep this one short and sweet with a brief update on life, the fam & me.

The hubs continues to thrive in his role as elementary principal at a nearby school, and I'm constantly proud of all that he has achieved thus far in his career. He gets up and heads in early so that he can come home once my daycare kiddos leave. He invests in our family. He's the king of finding deals (more on that in posts to come I'm sure), and he's 100% devoted to us. I love him unconditionally and would not be me without him. 

My girls are growing faster than weeds. Kcup is nearly 2.5 already and L is 7 months. K was recently potty trained and along with that rite of passage, came a strong(er) sense of independence, a more outspoken voice and several more "I can do it myself's" a day! She is my ever constant narrator of life, my dancing girl, my drama queen and sweet soul. My current favorite thing that she does is to crawl up into my lap and say, "Hi Mommy. How are you today? I love you so very much..." and on and on. She LOVES being a big sister, and is very involved in anything that involves L. L is my little chunker monker...she's active and moving! She pivots, flips, and crawls backwards at this point to get to where she wants to go. She says mama, gah, ba, pa, and la... though will only occasionally repeat sounds (my favorite of course being maaa). She loves to eat, and so far hasn't refused a single thing that we've put in front of her or given her. She continus to be fairly laid back and predictable, though occasionally likes to keep me on my toes. They are our amazing blessings, and I continue to be overwhelmed with love for them!

I recently put in my official letter of resignation from my teaching position. For those of you that know me well, know I haven't been working these past two school years....Last school year I was on a child rearing leave for K and had L in August before this current school year, asking for a maternity leave for this school year. When I originally asked for leave, I genuinely did not know what I would do after that first school year was up. Then once I was pregnant with L, it became clear I should stay home a bit longer. It's been nice to have my contract on the back burner, but it was time to make a final decision. In some ways I feel like it was an easy decision, and in other ways impossible. I LOVE my district and am a little biased but I know that we are the best district around...I was respected there, and loved my co-workers, the students, our philosophies, our practices, etc. I was excited to re-enter the classroom again after 2 years out as instructional coach, and know that I have a lot to offer when it comes to teaching. But, what it comes down to is I just love my girls more. I know that may sound silly, but at the end of the day, I want to be doing what I love and what I love is being with them and raising them. I want them to have a firm, solid foundation, and I want to be able to be home with them during these incredibly fast-paced formative years. While in practice the past few years I've been just a stay at home mom, along with providing care for a few kiddos, now I really am *just* a stay at home mom. 

And that's okay with me...