BOW-nanza!

My sister Em made Rose a big bunch of bows! She mailed us a box full of them this week. There are a few headbands and then a ton of bows with little clips on the back so they are interchangeable. I don’t know who had more fun with these bows—me or Em! Here are a few of her masterpieces:

Side note: look at those cheeks! Rose is putting on some pounds! this week she weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz, but she’s still only 19 inches long. Compared to other babies and percentiles, she is short and chubby! That makes me chuckle.

“STOP taking pictures of me, Mom!”

Rose’s cousin Steve made a “bow” too. A tad on the…square side, but not bad for a 3 year old!

These flower clips crack me up! They are so HUGE on Rose’s little head. I was thinking about getting her a hat for this summer, but who needs a hat when you have a giant flower to shade your eyes?

Can you believe that this isn’t all of the bows that Em  made? There are plenty more. Nobody will ever question Rose’s gender again! Thanks, Em!

[almost] All Systems, GO!

St. Patrick’s Day 2011 will be a marvelous day. I have chosen it to be my FIRST RUN in 10 months!! In preparation:

Drumroll… my much-anticipated double jogging stroller CAME in the mail this week!!! Yay! It is surprisingly slim for a double stroller, and I can wedge Rose’s car seat on top nice ‘n snug. AND it does fit in our little Honda Civic’s trunk—barely.

Today I took Jay and Rose out on its maiden voyage. It’s smooth and sleek, even though I do feel like I’m driving a truck when I push it! I actually don’t plan on doing much running with this stroller—I’ll try to run when Jeff is home so I don’t have to push a heavy stroller around.

It’s super nice to have the freedom and mobility of a jogging stroller! I still can’t believe that we actually spent so much on a mere stroller. But when I think of it as my vehicle, $178 is a pretty good deal! I can walk to: the doctor, the library, the post office, the hardware store, the grocery store, and two parks!

Since my first run is just around the corner, I got some new running shoes this week. They are pretty sweet Nike Frees. Jeff has had this shoe model for the past year and he says they’re the best running shoes ever, so I decided to give ‘em a whirl. They are made to let your foot move naturally (like barefoot running, with a shoe on), and so far I like the way they feel! [confession—I have run down the sidewalk and back a few times in them]

Put them all together, and…

Weehaw! We’re all ready to go! Now I’m just waiting for my BODY to hurry up and get all perfectly healed in the next week (ha) so I can do my favorite leisure activity again! I have missed running so so soooo much.

Half Brown, Half White…

Jay is in love with all kinds of bah, bah! (balls) But he is most partial to basketballs:

A few nights ago, I went in to put Rose in bed, and this is how I found Jay. That would be his Brown side coming out. My family all play basketball except me. Jeff never played basketball either. So how did we pass a basketball gene on to our son?

Jay is determined to do a dunk…or even just make a shot! He rarely actually throws the ball at the hoop, though. He seems to think that if he stretches himself UP enough, he’ll be able to drop the ball into the basket. Maybe some day…

And now on to the White part:

OK, this isn’t necessarily a White family trait. But that is white sour cream on the spoon Jay is licking! I don’t know why Jay loves sour cream so much, but last night he wasn’t eating his dinner, so I put a little sour cream on it, and vamoosh! he chowed it down. So I let him lick the spoon.

Nothing like a nice… nose-ful of sour cream?

As Jay would say, “mmmm, tatey!” (in other words: mmm, tasty!)

Who’s Who, Part Two

Can you tell?

 

 

 

OK, the order is: Rose, Jay, Rose, Jay. I must confess, now that I put these pictures next to each other, Rose and Jay don’t really look as similar as I thought they did when I started! Oh well, they’re still both MINE!! (and Jeff’s, of course)

Rose steals the show

First: I LOVE MY BABY GIRL!!!

SECOND: I am thankful for the priesthood and for my FAMILY!

Today was Rose’s baby blessing at church. It was such a happy, tender family moment. Rose was awake and happy as can be all during the blessing. Jeff’s parents and Stephanie and Jasen are in our ward, so of course they were there. My parents and Kyle and Mel got up before 5am and drove 3 hours to make it here in time for church. Rose got up at before 5am too, and didn’t really go to sleep for more than a few minutes until about 10am! So her mommy and half her relatives were all rather sleepy. Now that I’ve taken a refreshing 2 hour nap, I’m ready to reminisce about our day. Hopefully my previous exhaustion doesn’t cloud my memory!

 

Our awkward group picture. At least we’re all in it! (disclaimer: my skirt is askew and slightly rumpled from helping children stay reverent in Primary…)

My sweet little family. Love them.

My amazing kitchen-goddess of a mother cooked us a delicious dinner, and we chowed down on her gourmet, triple-meat meat loaf with special sauce, baked potatoes, peas, peanut butter pie, and banana cream pie. Leslie also contributed: a fluffy angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream. Like I said, it was a feast. Rose slept through it—amazingly I didn’t have to feed her during my meal time for once!

We had two tables for all 10 of us eating the feast. This is the “kid” table—or should I say the kid-less table (the people who don’t have their own kids). I must say, it was convenient that I took most of these pictures, because let’s face it—a sleep deprived Mama isn’t the most photogenic person out there.

My Dad (Grampa Charley) with half of his grandchildren (the other 2 are far away in Missouri, sadly). Jay’s face got tangled with an thorny rose bush yesterday while we were doing some yard work—that’s why he’s all scratched up. Still, I’d say good looks run in the family!

Rose with her auntie Mel. Since my family was only here for this one day, we played pass-the-baby, a-plenty. Somehow my Mom snuck under the photo-radar and I didn’t get a picture of her with Rose.

Uncle Kyle! Rose was crying so Kyle started talking to her, and she stopped crying to listen to her “unk!” Go Kyle, go.

Ok, for all you Rose-watchers, now it’s on to a plethora of baby pictures. I’m kind of in love with Rose’s big, billowing white dress. It’s a lot to handle while you’re  holding Rose, but it was so much fun to have such a pretty, flooofy, girly dress for her to wear. Her loving, talented Grama Leslie MADE this gorgeous dress—all of it! Beautiful.

I conveniently had these cute little rose bud shoe-socks. I put them over Rose’s giant tights (what kind of size is 0-9 months?) and the socks helped the tights stay on.

The whole dress. She’s my little dolly.

I am so thankful for my darling daughter Rose. When I look back at the nightmarish, puke-y pregnancy and the many discomforts I went through, they are all insignificant in comparison to the enormous reward of this sweet, precious little spirit. I feel so blessed that I get to be her mom! It is very humbling to be in charge of such a tender little person. Being a Mom is the best job ever! 

Family. Happy. Love.

What lies beneath…

For the past few weeks, I have been trying to decide if it’s worth the $170 to get a double jogging stroller. My stroller is my vehicle around this town—everywhere is within walking distance, and I rarely use the car. Experiment #1: I walked to Safeway with Rose in the front-baby carrier and Jay in the stroller. [bulky and awkward]. Jeff has been home most mornings since I started walking, so I’ve been just leaving Rose at home with him for my 20-30 minute strolls with Jay. But this morning, Jeff was gone early. So I got creative…Experiment #2:

How many kids are in this picture?

answer: 2!

I was trying to hold out till I could find a craigslist deal on a double jogging stroller, but I’ve been watching for a month, and everyone seems to think that their old musty strollers are worth just about as much as (or more than) a brand new one! But still I hesitated. Enter: faithful, super-husband. He got on Amazon last night and ordered me a double stroller.WAHOO! Sadly, it did not arrive in time for today’s walk… hence the creative solution.

I was paranoid the whole time we were out that a car would fling a rock into the bottom of the stroller and crack Rose’s skull or something. Thankfully that did not happen, but my anxiousness did spur me on to POWER-walk my little loop.  Rose never even woke up when I transferred her in and out of her little sub-stroller nest!

Good news: we’re all still alive! This is my favorite picture from our little weekly photo shoot (prop up camera, use timer, take 10,000 pictures, keep one) but alas it’s blurry…

Much clearer

It’s amazing how often we Moms tread the fine line between genius and insanity!

How are you feeling today?

Sleepy

Bright-eyed

Talkative [when I use the camera flash, it looks like she has more hair!]

Cheeky. [isn’t it crazy how big a difference the camera angle and position make—her cheeks look so juicy in this one!]

Distressed

Very distressed

Pacified. [we got Rose her first pacifier (aka binky) this week, and she’s about 50/50 for love/hate it right now]

Energetic

Amazed

Happy!?

Rose and I spend lots of time in my recliner. Tonight I was just holding her, basking in her cuteness, and I decided to go overboard with the camera. Can you believe she made all of these faces within 10 minutes?

Now for some motion:

I finally took a little video showcasing Jay’s drinking abilities, sans-sippy cup. There’s something about babies that makes me want to take a million pictures, and something about toddlers that makes me want to take a million videos! I think the older kids get, the harder it is to capture their cuteness in a mere pictures, so I resort to recording.

 

But babies are fun to watch in videos too! Rose seems pretty strong for a 3 week old baby girl, wouldn’t you say?

Can you tell I’m in Mommy-heaven? Yes, some days I feel distressed, and most days I feel sleepy, but most of all I feel happy and so blessed to be The Mom of these two sweet ones.  I love my little cuties!

It’s good to feel needed.