Yesterday was a long day, only made exponentially longer by my decision to not leave the house all day. (Always a poor choice, but it was cold INSIDE my apartment, so I can only imagine how much colder it was outside. #wimp ← I blame my CA upbringing😜.)
By the time Stephen left for basketball at 9:00 pm, I was READY for some time to relax and get caught up on a few projects (and over-story, as is my typical Tuesday night custom 😜) and juuuust as I was getting in the groove, Elliott woke up. I checked his diaper, fed him, burped him, and put him down again, sure he would fall back asleep without a problem. Wrong. I decided to let him ‘work it out’ and try to fall asleep on his own, but after a solid hour of him “crying” (I put crying in quotes, because he doesn’t really cry, it’s more like a whine haha, he’s a saint) I had had ENOUGH. Annoyed that I hadn't been nearly as productive as I had planned, I went into his room (aka our closet😂) and was determined to get this stinkin’ baby to SLEEP, dangit! Needless to say, I was a liiiittle bit grumpy😬, but Elliott didn’t notice. The second I walked into the room he stopped crying and the moment I picked him up he gave me THE BIGGEST smile followed by he cutest, happiest, jolliest giggle, AND I MELTED INTO A PUDDLE ON THE FLOOR. In an instant he had taken me from grumpy to grateful, madly in love with this suddenly PERFECT baby 😂.
Instead of putting him down again and continuing the battle of wills, I took him out of his crib and we played. At nearly 11 pm, after a REALLY long day, we spent a solid twenty minutes staring at each other, giggling and smiling, playing peak-a-boo, and babbling back and forth.
Sometimes I feel guilty for how little one-on-one attention he gets from me. I know that comes with the territory of being a second child, but I feel like it’s a little more extreme in his case because he is SO chill all the time and will contently sit in his little play-chair for hours while I’m busy doing a million other things (and also because Lydia is quite good at demanding my attention these days 😂).
I don’t dwell on this guilt often because I know there’s not much I can do about it, but I’m realizing more and more just how fleeting this stage of motherhood really is. People always say that, but it really is so true. It’s crazy! Those squishy, baby-soft cheeks and thighs won’t last forever. Every part of motherhood is just a phase - the good and the bad, and it will all be over before I know it. Last night served as a little reminder for to try a little harder to cherish the sweet moments when they come - even when they are inconvenient and mean leaving my ever-growing to-do list for another day.
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han.
Wilton Animal Crackers Pan
THE FALL LEAVES 😍😍// When Lucca called Elliott "the jolly guy" // when Lydia offers to cuddle me so she can watch TV "for two minutes" //dinner with my Jeru Roomies // #ldsconf // when Lydia says "I wike it!!"// bake-at-home cinnamon rolls that are all of the 😋 and none of the 💪🏻 (or mess!) // Lydia watching Kiki in the dryer // Elliott laughing when Lydia jumps around the house // the bird show at the zoo // visiting @thedaintypear + her cute family // blackberries on sale // jalapeno cheetos on a peanut butter sandwich
I think it's high time these lists were reinstated, what think ye?!
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han.
When I agreed to scheduling our wedding the day AFTER my birthday, I had only one stipulation:
We were NOT allowed to combine my birthday celebration with our anniversary celebration.
Obviously, I was highly against the idea of getting gypped out of two HIGHLY necessary celebrations. At some point (while we were engaged) we agreed that we would celebrate future anniversaries at the end of the April, when we got engaged, so that we could spread out the celebrations and have more to celebrate year round.
And so that was the plan! ...until we realized that that meant celebrating our "one year anniversary" only six months after getting married. ha. Every year we say we're going to celebrate in April, and every year it just feels awkward and we don't. And when our anniversary comes around we usually don't do much since we just celebrated my birthday...and it becomes EXACTLY WHAT WE SWORE WOULD NEVER HAPPEN😑.
And so that was the plan! ...until we realized that that meant celebrating our "one year anniversary" only six months after getting married. ha. Every year we say we're going to celebrate in April, and every year it just feels awkward and we don't. And when our anniversary comes around we usually don't do much since we just celebrated my birthday...and it becomes EXACTLY WHAT WE SWORE WOULD NEVER HAPPEN😑.
This year, though, I was determined to make our anniversary special! When I realized my parents were going to be in town for my Grandpa's Rasband's birthday party the weekend of our four-year anniversary, I coordinated with my mom to have her and my dad stay with Lydia and Elliott and planned a little surprise getaway for Stephen and me. It was a blast! We did a "zipline tour" in Park City (sounds a lot cooler than it is hahaha, see video) and then spent the night at the Zermatt Resort in Midway! Considering it was our first time away from Lydia overnight, AND the first time we'd stayed in a hotel since our Honeymoon...it was long overdue!
Here's a little VLOG I made throughout the busy and fun-filled week!
PS I just noticed that this video has a thumbs down and I actually started laughing OUT LOUD. Some people have way too much time on their hands 😂😂😂
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han
I've been so busy lately concentrating on instagram and growing my youtube channel (oh yeah, and being a mom of two under two 😅😂) that I'm afraid I've let this little blog of mine fall through the cracks. I really don't want to let it die completely, but I'm not sure I'll be able to consistently make time to post new content on it, so I'm going to start posting my instagram photos here as well. For those of you who already follow me on instgram, these posts might feel a little redundant, but I have a few siblings who STILL don't have instagram (no matter how much I plead for them to jump on the wagon ;)) AND since instagram's feed is no longer in chronological order, it might be nice for people to keep track of it on here. Most of all though, this space is still primary my "life story" if you will, and I think it will be nice to have more of my story in one place. (I'm going to try to be better about posting my youtube videos here right away as well.)
To take full advantage of this moment with both kids napping, I'll provide a quick update: Life is GREAT. We have love love loved the addition of Elliott to our little family and he continues to be the happiest, chillest, and chunkiest baby ever. I would guess he is WEEKS away from surpassing Lydia in weight and I daresay his head is already bigger than hers. haha! Stephen continues to work long and hard for our family and we have LOVED the long summer days that have allowed us to get out of the house after he's home and still have hours of daylight to hit up the splash pad or the slide at a nearby park. Thinking about the fact that soon he will be coming home after dark already has me a little apprehensive (is it just me, or do days seem to DRAG AND DRAG when the sun is out for such a short time?). Thankfully I feel like the kids and I are in a really good routine (although don't ask me how I feel on Friday - SNOW is in the forecast😭!!!) and we are SO GRATEFUL to be living in our apartment with so many friends around during the day.
Thanks for being here and I'm really hoping to back here again SOON!
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han.
This evening, entirely unprompted, you grabbed a book off of the shelf and took it to the couch to read to Elliott while Dad and I were finishing up dinner. You draped a burp rag over your legs like a tiny blanket and flipped through the pages of the book, showing Elliott the animal on each page and making their sound. When you finished the first book, you wrapped the "blanket" around Elliott and walked across the room to the bookshelf to get another. The stack of books next to you grew as Dad and I watched, and we silently mouthed to each other just how blessed we are to have two incredible babies, not wanting to ruin the moment by making a peep. We smiled and each other and agreed (yet again) that you are, without a doubt, THE BEST big sister.
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han
A few weeks ago we went to the zoo with my brother Daniel and his wife Olivia. We've been taking full advantage of our zoo passes, going half an hour to an hour before closing, so meeting up with them there on a Saturday morning was quite different than what we've been getting used to (i.e. crowded, haha). We still had a ton of fun AND we got to watch the Sea Lion show which Lydia LOVED. She was attentive the whole time and kept saying "More! More! More!" 😂
I asked Daniel and Olivia to bring along their selfie stick, and I used it to record footage throughout the day. Lydia took a little while to warm up to the camera, but she was a fan of the selfie stick from the start, haha. She kept gabbing it during the videos so if you're wondering why the camera moves really close to my face at any point, you can thank her for that!
I can't decide if I like "vlogging" like this more or less than just posting to instagram stories. Recording and editing a video is a ton more work, but I do like that it doesn't go away after 24 hours, and I feel like we're much more likely to rewatch videos like this as a family than we are to watch 10 second clips that saved to my phone from my stories?! (Like taking pictures (instastories) vs. printing and scrapbooking them (vlogging).) I keep going back and forth on how I feel. haha. Input is always appreciated ;)
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han.
A few weeks ago Stephen and I were sitting out on the balcony watching Lydia play in a small bucket of dirty water and we decided to film a video talking all about Lydia. Although it didn't feel like it (Stephen agrees!!!), we ended up with almost 25 minutes of footage (🙈) so I did my best to narrow it down to closer to about six minutes, but I realize it is STILL one of those videos that is going to be infinitely more entertaining for parents and grandparents (and hopefully her someday) than for anyone else. haha. (In other words, if you think it is boring, I will do my best to refrain from saying "I told you so." ;))
It's crazy how much Lydia has changed just in the last three weeks since this was filmed! Very few things we talk about in the video are still true, and she knows SO MANY more words now, but it just makes me glad we filmed it when we did because every stage at this age is so fleeting!
Oh how we love our Lydia Girl!
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han.
