9 Months

Hello Miss Paige,

A couple weeks ago you turned 9 months old. It pains me a little to think all that time has passed. It seems like just yesterday that you were born. You were so tiny, helpless, and actually a fairly cranky baby. Now you are the complete opposite! You are my chunky, independent, carefree, blue-eyed beauty. I love to kiss your chubby cheeks and those eyelashes are to die for! You will probably get comments and compliments on your eyes for the rest of your life.



I wish I could explain to you what a blessing you have been to me- to our family. I couldn't have asked Heavenly Father for a more perfect baby to have while I've dealt with life since you were born. Our family fell apart and was mended and you went through almost all of it without any trouble. I want to apologize to you for not being the kind of Mom I wanted to be for you when you were so little. I wanted to spend hours playing with you on the floor and taking thousands of pictures like I did with your sister. Instead I played with you a little bit every day, fed you, took care of you and loved you as often as I could and you spent the rest of the time playing on the floor while I cried and tried to sort through the hard things. I have so much guilt that I carry with me for those few months of your life, but I pray that we still have a lot of time together and I hope I can make it up to you. I will forever be grateful to have you in my life and for how easy you were for me when times were hard.



You are my little sunbeam. Your eyes and your smile light up a room. You have learned to shake your head "yes" and "no", clap, wave, and keep your hands on the highchair tray when you are being fed. You are quite mobile using rolling and the "army crawl" to get around with little difficulty. You are starting to discover what "real food" tastes like and will vigorously shake your head "yes" when you like something. You love music and will dance if you hear it. You like to touch people's faces when you meet them, unless you are feeling shy. You love your sister and are always watching her to see what she'll do next- sometimes warily as she tends to be a little rough with you. You are tough! You'll fight back if you have to, get angry when someone takes something from you and aren't afraid to show it with a scream or a cry, and you'll even grab hold of a dog if it gets too close to you...and it won't bother you again! You have a funny low-pitched laugh and like to growl and "talk". Sometimes what you say sounds like words we like to think are "hi" "mumum" and "dad". You are sweet and special. I only wish I could know what thoughts you are having when I look into those big, blue eyes.



I hope you know just how much I- we- love you. I can't wait to see what you do next!

Love,

Mama

Happy Mother's Day

As we get older we start to realize that our Mother is actually one of the wisest people in our lives. She is the person who loves us the most in the world, who get us through our hurts- large and small, who builds us up and will always support us and love us. Today I am grateful for my Mother and the amazing example she is of motherhood and for all the advice she gives me.



I am also thankful for all the women in my life who are examples to me of what it means to be a woman. Most of all, I'm grateful to be a mother to two beautiful little girls. They bring me so much joy, teach me more than I thought possible, and are the greatest blessings in my life. I love my little family. To all the mothers, women, mother figures and everyone in between, Happy Mother's Day!

28 Goals- May

To begin, I am going to publicly call myself out as a slacker for April. It was a crazy month, it flew by and part of it was spent in another state. However, these goals are important to me so I am going to refocus this month. Here's the state of the goals I've assigned myself so far:

I'm still working on reading (#7), slowly. I think I've changed this goal to reading as much as I can. What was I thinking when I said "100 books"?!

Exercise (#3) was killed by Easter weekend and illness. We are bringing it back tonight and then we're going to add Insanity to the mix in a couple weeks. I'm excited!

I've decided to call #13 "Sing full voiced more often" completed as I now sing all the time. Sometimes Zoe tells me, "Mom, I want to listen to music instead" when I sing a capella in the car...not sure how to take that.

Morning prayers (#19) are still a struggle-mostly because I always get up late. I REALLY need to work on both of those!

Potty training Zoe (#6) has begun, but I haven't been committed to it. Perhaps it's laziness on my part, or that our days fly by, or that I don't really know what I'm doing. I am not sure. If anyone knows of any good, short books on potty training for parents PLEASE share!

Water (#22) was becoming my drink of choice for a long time. I had given up soda and was drinking a lot of water every day. That has changed, but I plan to refocus on that starting today.

My poor flute (#12) remains untouched. Sometimes I wonder if I'm trying to tackle too much? (A topic for another post.)

My OCD (#4) seems to be getting more manageable. I have been working hard at letting things go, letting people help me. My biggest struggle is letting Zoe do things because she's not old enough to do a lot of them the "right way" and it's so frustrating. I know she needs to learn responsibility so I'm trying to keep at it, but it's truly difficult for me. I'll keep working on this...probably for the rest of my life.

My nervous habit (#28)- have I even told you what it is? I bite my cuticles when I'm bored, when I'm nervous, when they crack and sometimes for no reason at all. I have done it for as long as I can remember and it's always been something I hate about myself. I'm not even close to sure how to stop as I often find myself doing it without even thinking.

May Goals:

#8 Take more pictures than last year (especially of Paige). I think I'm going to try to start blogging more, thinking of switching homes for my blog and updating/ redoing. Along the same lines I want to start adding more pictures to my posts. I think doing that will help me take more pictures. Plus, miss Paige needs to be captured more.

#15 Take walks regularly. I want to do this as a family or at least with my girls to get some fresh air, give Zoe and myself some exercise and enjoy the beautiful weather we're FINALLY having!

# 20 Learn to be on time. People that know me well might laugh at this goal. I have been late to almost everything for as long as I can remember. It's embarrassing and I don't like it, but somehow it always happens. I think this will be a difficult goal to accomplish, but I think it will be extremely character building and satisfying when I do.

Feeling a little overwhelmed now. Breathe...