TIRED:

I'm tired!  Why is sleep regression a thing?  Over the last 3 weeks Joss has decided to wake up at least twice each night.  She was sleeping better when she was 2 months old.  There are definitely worse things and I don't even mind getting up THAT much but I really don't want this to become a habit.  I would let her cry a little/put herself back to sleep but she actually seems pretty hungry in the middle of the night.  I'm feeding her every two hours during the day which I would think would keep her full long enough at night but I guess not.
I've noticed that every time I write on here that she is sleeping well, it usually takes the opposite turn after that.  I'm a little superstitious so maybe now that I'm writing that she's not sleeping as good, we'll have a good night tonight:).  In the meantime I think I may need to schedule an overnight work trip to catch up on sleep ASAP!

Seriously though, this is a pretty sweet face to have to wake up to!

Jett has a new favorite thing to say.  He's a boy so naturally he thinks farting is funny  And quite honestly, if you don't think farting is funny, you probably aren't friends with Jake and I.  Anyway, he used to always refer to it as "tooting" but recently has been saying, "I sat on a duck."  Or once in a while he'll accidentally say, "I tooted on a duck."  We can thank his dad for teaching him this and his mom for encouraging it!

Over the weekend my sister Pam kindly took our kids so Jake and I could go downtown and re-kindle some friendships (we feel like we've been MIA for the past 4 months).  Jett and Joss both had fun with their cousins and aunt and uncle.

The pic below is Jett on the left and Joss on the right.  They are the exact same age in the picture wearing the same outfit.  The overall consensus seems to be that Jett looks more like me and Joss looks more like Jake.  But they still look alike.

Seeing them interact never gets old to me!

OCTOBER HAPPENINGS!

I thought it would be a good time to update on what it's like having a two year old.  I'd say it is 60% fun and 40% challenging.  Jett has started having his own opinions about what he wants to do and when he wants to do it.    We've tried to figure out the best way to get him to listen to us and I'd love to say we've come up with a solution.  The good news is he's good in public and great at listening to other people.  It's just his mom and dad who he likes to mess with at times.  He is also very sweet and funny though which makes it all worth it.

Some of that sweet and funny behavior includes the following:

Saying "You're beautiful" to his little sister and always wanting to kiss her goodnight.  

Going for a bike ride with dad and saying "I had a good day on the road" to me when he returned home.

Saying, "I love you so much big!" and stretching out his arms to show me just how much.

When I ask him if he wants to do something he often responds with, "Sure, that'd be fun!"

Saying his nighttime prayer with little help from us.  

Saying "Hi buddy" to his sister.

Whenever Joss smiles at someone he'll say, "SHE LIKES YOU!!"

Is it just me or is he starting to look really grown up?

And now for an update on Joss.  She is rolling over (stomach to back), talking/yelling, and scooting backwards on her back.  We are always surprised with her ability to get from point A to point B (I don't want to talk about what happened on our ottoman a few weeks ago:(.  She doesn't mind tummy time and is pretty good at it.

We've been able to get out and enjoy the nice weather a lot lately.

Over the weekend we painted and carved pumpkins which Jett really enjoyed!

And Jake enjoyed it too of course!

It was the perfect fall day for a little photo shoot with the kids.

PERSPECTIVE:

Does anyone else think it’s crazy how at almost every point in your life you can feel like your plate is full but you just keep adding more on as you go and somehow continue to always manage with the situation you are in?  You often surprise yourself with what you can handle and then you look back at previous points in your life and think it’s funny that you were ever overwhelmed? 

A little over 5 years ago Jake and I were in our late 20’s  living in an apartment with no kids.   Jake was an associate working 27 hours a week and I had the same job I have now.  This is kind of hilarious, but I think we thought we were busy.  I guess we were when it came to our social life.  More recently we kind of dove in and did everything at once.  After buying a house we eventually got pregnant, had a baby, started a business, and had another baby.  Downtime isn’t a word in our vocabulary right now but I’m sure those families with 3+ kids would laugh at me for thinking that I’m busy.  It’s all about perspective.  It’s likely that I’ll read this post a few years from now when I have more on my plate and want to laugh at myself again.  But these are the types of good things to have on your plate. 

There is another kind of “full plate”.  That is the one my parents have.  I briefly posted about this once before and need to again because it always feels wrong not to mention the elephant in the room (or the elephant in my mind if you will).  It’s such a big part of my life and makes me who I am.

My parents started out like any other couple.  They were high school sweethearts, got married young (19 and 20), and started their family right away.  They had three girls by the time my mom was 24.  All my mom ever wanted was to be a wife and a mom.  And she did that so well!  My dad found out he had diabetes when he was 10.  Having diabetes was completely different at that time.  It wasn’t managed well and led to a lot of problems for him later in life.  When my dad was in his late 20’s he lost his sight.  He farmed for a living so you can imagine how this changed his lifestyle.  He pushed through, remained positive, and knew that he had a family that was depending on him.  In his mid-30’s (right after having a fourth daughter) he had a quadruple bypass.  How many people do you know in their 30’s who have had to have bypass surgery?   I don’t know any.  So young!!   Around that time he also started dialysis and was put on a kidney  transplant waiting list.  At 36 (I think) he got his kidney transplant.  I remember the years after that going fairly smooth.  We never felt like our family was any different than any other family.  Health issues were never the focus (although now that I am approaching that age with my own young family, I don’t know how they possibly dealt with all of that while keeping things normal for us).  If you ask them, they just always took it day by day.  Dealt with one thing at a time.  My dad was stubborn and always bounced back the best he could.  We’ve often said that he has nine lives.  His last surgery was in his late 40’s and he ended up in the hospital recovering  for two months that time.  Although the surgery was hard to recover from, he still never gave up.

 I wanted to write this post because when I think of perspective I often think of these two.  They never complained, always kept our lives normal, always set a good example for marriage, and never gave up on each other.  Most people would say that they wouldn’t have been able to handle all of those health struggles.   But my parents simply focused on the good.  As for where they are at today, health is not good.  My dad’s heart and kidney are both failing.   Some days are better than others but they are taking it day by day and getting through it together just like they always have.  They are the strongest people I know who would still consider themselves lucky in so many ways.

We all complain about silly things at times and that is normal.   But I think this story is a good reminder to think about life differently.

Before you complain about your job, think about how lucky you are to be able to work!
Before you complain about being busy with your kids, think how lucky you are to look at their sweet faces!
Before you complain about life, think how lucky you are to live the full one that you do!

I've said this before, but if you have your health and you have your family, you have everything!

FALL IS HERE

It is officially fall and Jett is obsessed with pumpkins.  We are looking forward to some fun activities with him this month and hopefully a lot more time outside.

Joss turned three months on Friday.  With Jett I remember 3-6 months as my favorite stage in the baby world.  Now that we are here with Joss, I can totally remember why.  She is sleeping good, more content all the time, and smiling so big that she uses her whole body.  And my personal favorite, she can’t move yet so she’s pretty easy to take care of.   I have her right where I want her.  

A few weeks ago we started putting her to bed awake and it’s been the best thing ever for us.  I don’t know why we didn’t start doing it earlier.  I guess I was afraid she’d cry and wake Jett up.  It seemed like the harder I tried to put her to sleep, the more awake she would get.   One night I just said “screw it” and laid her in bed and walked out.  And that was it.  We’ve been doing it every night since.  And now we feel like we actually get somewhat of an evening by putting both kids to bed around 8:00.  Yay for us!  At three months her routine is sleeping from 8-4 at night, waking up to eat, and then sleeping till around 7:00.  She is super happy right when she wakes up and will smile at anything.   Around 8:30 she'll usually take a 2-3 hour nap.  Then she'll take another nap in the afternoon.  If she's fussy, it is usually between 6:30-7:30 in the evening but as long as we are holding her and giving her attention, she's fine.  She eats every 2-3 hours during the day.  I think our biggest challenge right now is that typically nighttime is when we have things going on or people want to get together.  And that is the time of the day that would be most difficult for a babysitter to take care of our kids.  Definitely hard on the social life but we'll get back into it eventually.  In the meantime if anyone wants to hang out first thing in the morning or after 8:00 at night (at our house) that would work awesome for us:).

Of course I have a lot of pictures of my favorite 3 month old:

Joss and Jett went to their first wedding on Friday (uncle Zach and aunt Brittney) and it was the first wedding I've experienced with kids.  It's definitely a different experience than the weddings we attended with just the two of us!  Neither of the kids made it through the ceremony.  Jake was in the wedding so he wasn't sitting with us.  Joss was fussy so I walked out before it even started.  I left Jett with Jake's aunt Launa.  The ceremony was right next to railroad tracks and a train came through when Brittney was walking down the isle.  When Jett hears a train, he can't physically sit still or be quiet and has to see it immediately.  Launa found this out the hard way and had to take him over to see the train as soon as Brittney got down the isle.  Since it was a family wedding, we wanted our kids to be there but we don't plan on taking the kids to any other weddings anytime soon!  Congratulations to Zach and Brittney!  Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures because I was holding kids the whole time but here are the ones I do have.

And here are a few outtakes from our family photo session:

The best we could get: