joys of motherhood: April

-Nolan is starting to recognize emotions and will point out when people are sad or crying or happy. He also is associating feelings with himself. The other day when i laid him down for his nap he said: N:"seepy"
me: are you so sleepy?
N: "tie dud" (=tired)
I was surprised he thought to use the word tired.
He is also obsessed with people being mean. If he notices that there is a bad guy in a show or someone is yelling he starts pointing and shouting "mean! mean!" If he does something naughty we will tell him he's being mean and he shouts it again, although I'm not sure he's quite realized that this is an unwanted attribute.
-Nolan is talking a lot and putting more words together. Both of my kids seem to be QUITE talkative. He says really funny stuff and all of a sudden it's like he's decided it's time to talk in full sentences. He will repeat almost anything and always repeats you're intonation so if you say it in an excited way or as a question he will always go up at the end. It's funny. The other day he was sitting in the stroller at the mall and Caitlin came up and was hanging on the side by him. He looked at her and said "hi sweetie, hi sweetie!"
-Mom confession #1: I totally cry whenever I see my kids doing things for the first time without me. For example: Caitlin's first dance class, Caitlin's first dance recital, and most recently: swim lessons. Nolan is out there in the water and I'm getting totally teary eyed while trying to keep it together so the other mom's done see and so i don't start bawling while I'm trying to answer Caitlin wondering if there's a bathroom there. I'm like literally tearing up watching Nolan hold his breath and go under water. I'm a mess, and not looking forward to the first days of school.
-Mom confession #2: Everyday (almost) during quiet time at my house while I'm sitting here on the computer I hear the bus come by to drop off a neighbor and every. single. time. I think it is the UPS truck and hope they are bringing me a package. Sometimes I even get up to check... nope, just the bus, just like every other day.
-In the car sometimes Nolan will wriggle his arms out of the car seat straps if the buckle is not pulled up far enough. So naughty. I alway try to pull over right away and make a big deal about that not being safe. He did it the other day and there was no way to pull over but there was a red light coming so i planned to stop and fix it. Caitlin kept telling me his arms were out and that he wasn't being safe. I ket telling her I would put them back when i got to the red light. As we pulled up I put the car in park and Caitlin says "Mom, Nolan's arms are out and that's not safe.... can you handle this?"
-At swim class Caitlin got to wear her goggles which she was SO excited to do. I 100% think they helped her mood and swimming. But anyways she put them on and when she went under the water for the first time she popped up and told her teacher "wow! You have really small feet under there!" then turns and yells to me "Mom! She has really small feet under there!" I was cracking up.
-We were at the mall the other day and went to Victoria's Secret for a couple minutes. As we were leaving we walked past the big display in the front that had a mannequin wearing the huge feather angel wings and Caitlin says, "oh I love that little chicken thing!" HAHA probably not the sexy effect all the VS angels were going for.
-The other day I told Caitlin that i used to do something when i was little. She began asking me all these questions about people growing up and then becoming mommies and grandmas and all about family connections. Some of her questions were kind of hard to answer in a way that would make sense! So then she asks me, "So Mom, do you get a new face when you get old?" HAHA!
-One night I was feeling really tired and anxious to get the kids into bed. I was helping Caitlin go to the bathroom and she wasn't putting her jammies back on and just dawdling so i was being kind of short with her. She took my cheeks in her hands and said "Mom. We've had a fun day, so please don't be a disappointing now." I mean the things she comes up with.... she knows how to put me in my place.
-When we went to "This is the Place Heritage Park" they have a bunch of tall monuments as you drive up with Brigham Young and the likes on top.
Caitlin said: "Mom, who's up there?"
me: "I'm not sure we'll have to see when we're closer."
Caitlin: (in a really serious voice) "Mom, it's the Gods."
What?!
-She would prefer to wear a dress or tutu (aka a skirt) everyday. Someone asked me if I did something to make her like that and I said no, she comes by it on her own. And now that it's summer that's probably what she'll be wearing most the time. On Saturday to go to Walmart she insisted on this outfit. And then asked me to take pictures of her. Such a girly girl.

-Nolan is actually really into accessories. He loves hats and wearing glasses. Whenever we are in the car and I put on my sunglasses he asks for his "dasses".

-Cleaning the house sometimes can feel so counterproductive. Caitlin dropped the soap dispenser and spilled glass and soap all over the bathroom floor and Nolan colored all over the top of the vacuum with green crayon. I had a serious talk with him and told him we don't do that and to say sorry. At first he seemed apologetic then he got that little look in his eye and scrunched his face and yelled and swatted at me. When that happened I took him to his room and put him in time out. He didn't like that. Then i went and had another talk with him and that was that. A few minutes later i hear him yelling in the kitchen "tie out! tie out! no no no!" and He was making his Mickey pretend to color in the vacuum then saying "tie out" and putting him on the table. While trying to clean the vacuum with a wipe. I had to laugh.

my birthday

Monday night I got to have a lovely girls night with friends. They planned a night at the Grand America to celebrate Jamie and my birthday. There were eight of us and we had such a good time just relaxing and talking and laughing. These girls are beautiful, kind, sweet and funny and I'm so lucky to call them my friends. We ate at the Garden Room and right after we sat down the waitress asked who the birthday girls were and brought out two beautiful flower arrangements! They were from our husbands! It was such a sweet and thoughtful gesture.. good job boys! We ate delicious dinner and then walked to a yummy little place for dessert. Such a fun way to kick off my birthday week!

Friday rolled around and although I was not really looking forward to turning 27, it was a good day. I have no doubt the year ahead holds lots of happy and fun memories to be made.

-Paul and the kids made me breakfast and I got to open some presents! Got some fun things... new shoes, nail polish, and my lovely new diaper bag! Can’t wait to use it. 

-Worked out (haven’t been able to do that lately because of conflicting times with the the kids swim lessons so it felt really good!)  

-Went to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point with Missy, Heather, Jamie and company. We picnicked by the waterfall, admired the tulips, played in the fountains and fed the fish. It was lovely.... a little piece of tulip heaven Holland right in our backyard (not that I would know since I haven’t actually been there but I can imagine). It really was beautiful and luckily the rain held out!

-That night I got to have a long date night with Paul. No matter how many birthday come and go one thing will never change: Paul is my favorite person to be with and I loved having him all to myself on my birthday eve. We had a little shopping spree at Ikea (things for the new renovations) and even picked up a KSL find that I have some big plans for. We tried a new place for dinner: “Alamexo” in Salt Lake, yummy Mexican food. We thought about a movie but decided we were too tired. So I came home and had 3 Musketeers and Dr. Pepper for dessert (honestly wouldn’t have picked anything else).

So I’m now older than I have ever been, but I have a fantastic husband, two beautiful children and one on the way, wonderful family and the funnest friends, and a blessed life to show for it... so I guess I’m doing pretty well. 

Cortney: 5 months along

Second trimester is always my favorite place to be. Luckily it's a good spot too because I feel like this pregnancy is going by so s-l-o-w-l-y thus far! Here's a little bit of what's been going on:
-Symptoms: I have been feeling a lot better since getting into my second trimester. Definite decrease in stomach aches, nausea and headaches, although still there some. My appetite is pretty much back. Still have low energy and feel tired all the time, so I try to sneak in naps whenever I can. Also by about 10 PM I'm ready to hit the hay, whether I was able to nap or not.
-Cravings: Salty things and soda. I LOVE salt and vinegar chips (ok fine any kind of chips) and of course still love my Diet Dr. Pepper but I try to stay away from that as much as I can because of the caffeine so really any carbonated beverage will do. Some days though all I want to eat is chocolate so i'm keeping it balanced.
-Fitness: During the first trimester I gained about 6 pounds. Then during month four I gained 6 more. (yowza!) I've been able to still work out some by going to my Barre class. I love it there and I'm so glad it's a pregnancy friendly workout. This will be my first pregnancy to do any sort of working out at all so I'm excited to see if it makes a big difference. Also, I'm usually not one to force the baby belly but there is no doubt I am showing way earlier with this baby. I hate being in the fat stages during the day but at night I have a full-on baby bump. With my others I never popped out until after 5 months so this seems weird and too soon. I'm stubborn and still hanging on to wearing non-maternity clothes (as long as I can discreetly unbutton my pants). I actually have started incorporating a few maternity shirts (I mean no one wants to look poochy).
-News: Feeling the baby move now! Starting feeling flutters around 16 weeks then progressively more and stronger from there. Feeling my baby move is definitely one of my favorite things during pregnancy.
We got our ultrasound on April 22nd. Since we are deciding to keep the gender a surprise, there was a whole different feeling going into this one. I spent most of my time covering my eyes, and I felt like it was the longest ultrasound ever. I kind of wanted her to just check it out and make sure everything looked goo and get out before I peeked. But very glad that she was thorough. Especially glad that the baby is looking great and I am measuring right on for my due date. The tech did a good job keeping things a secret although one time i thought i heard her slip up and say "he" but then a few minutes later i thought i heard her say "she" so I wasn't able to determine anything. She took a picture and put it in a sealed envelope. They didn't write it down in my chart so that none of the nurses or doctor will slip up either. I knew this would be my biggest temptation and hurdle to get through in our experiment of not finding out so I'm glad we stayed strong, Although I do have to get one more ultrasound in a couple months so I'll have to stick to my guns again.  


-Inklings: At first I had no feelings as to the gender, then I started feeling pretty strongly that it is a girl. My sickness index and weight gain would point toward being a girl too, although my cravings point to boy. I also feel like I'm carrying high. Right now I'm kind of mentally preparing for a girl but if it's a boy I will be very pleasantly surprised. Paul (as with both times before) is sure it's a boy. 

weekend review

Other than Easter weekend, we did a few other fun things:

Friday night Paul had planned a date with Caitlin. She said she wanted to do a "camp out" and had been looking forward to it for days. When Friday came we were all feeling really tired a little under the weather so Caitlin was nice enough to let Nolan and I double date with them and we just roasted hot dogs and s'mores in the backyard then snuggled and watched Frozen inside. It was a really fun night.

Saturday night we went to Salt Lake to celebrate Jamie Hansen's birthday. We ate at a fun restaurant and then went to "The Tavernacle" to see the dueling pianos. That was an experience to say the least, one from which we excused ourselves pretty quickly due to crude language and unsavory company. The guy playing the piano called us the "mission reunion table" and it was actually all pretty funny. We rounded out the evening with delicious gelato and we all had a great time.

Easter

This year the church put out a really wonderful video with the theme of "Because of Him" for Easter. (Click HERE if you haven't seen it!)

I love the message that this video sends, a message I've been identifying a lot lately. One of encouragement and hope. Life is hard, the world we live in can be a trying and dark place but we can do this. We can get through and be strong and live good lives and become better people. As it says in the movie, we can begin again and again and again. There is no end, only new beginnings. I love this sentiment and feeling especially around this Easter Spring time of new beginnings and freshness and love for our Savior, his atonement and most of all his resurrection. I feel truly blessed to have this knowledge and to have my family to share and go through life with, into eternity.   

I love Easter and its perfect mix of fun and spiritual:

Monday for Family Home Evening we dyed Easter eggs. The kids loved it and Paul's idea to do it outside was a complete lifesaver. Nolan literally threw the eggs into the cup, usually a couple in each then would reach in and switch them around. Caitlin learned to color on them with the crayon. We actually came out with some pretty ones and definitely a few cracked ones as well. 

Friday we went to a fun play date party at the Bryant's. Lots of yummy food for the moms to eat and chat and lots of cute kids and toys for the kids. They also had an egg hunt! They had some chickens in their yard that my kids were mesmerized by and one of the little girls let one out and Caitlin came running into the house saying "Mom! one of the chickens got out of the coop!" I was laughing so hard because I was wondering how she knew a chicken's house was called a coop?!    

Saturday morning we went to the "Eggstravaganza" egg hunt at Thanksgiving Point and it was pretty much like any other public egg hunt... an intense 4 seconds. Then we ate treats and played in the bounce houses and said hi to the Easter Bunny.  

After the hunt we went to the store to pick our our Easter animal. After our VERY failed attempt with the bunny last year I was not quite sure that I was ready to step into this but Paul thinks it's good for the kids. So we went and looked at our options. The bunnies were tempting but we eventually decided on a trio of fluffy yellow chicks. They are very soft and actually really mellow and cute. We brought our chicks home and set up their "bunny coop" as Caitlin calls it (revamped left over bunny cage) and had fun playing with them. That is until a few hours later when Nolan was holding one then forgot about it and stated playing and was squeezing it and fell on top of it and... yes. It died. So after day one we are 2 for 3. Literally the worst pet owners. Caitlin has taken really loving care of them so she immediately noticed one was missing and I had to tell her that it died. She was really sad but about 5 minutes later she was telling someone "yah we had 3 chicks but then one totally died!" I guess after all our pet mishaps it's not to traumatizing. The two we still have are very sweet and doing well thus far. Caitlin changes their names every time someone asks but so far one is always named "color" and the other is variable. 

Easter Sunday we attended Jackson Turnbull's homecoming in the morning at their ward then came back to our ward for the third hour. I will openly admit I was a little obsessed with how cute the kids looked in their Easter outfits. So we came home and took lots of pictures. The Stuarts came and joined us for a few with the chicks. After that we got to have our own egg hunt in the yard! The kids loved all their treats. Then we got dinner ready and ate with the McCulloughs and Chris. The Easter bunny came to fill the kid's baskets during their nap and put them in the family room so I put a blanket up so the kids couldn't see when they got up. We were cleaning up from dinner and planned to unveil the baskets after when we noticed we couldn't find Nolan. All of the sudden he popped out from behind the blanket yelling "treats!" Wearing the sunglasses from his basket holding his jellybeans with a huge grin on his face. It was hilarious! ...So we did baskets. I always get the kids new swimsuits for Easter, plus other fun things that they played with and we enjoyed for the rest of the day. The McCulloughs brought over confetti eggs so we had a hunt for those and cracked them on each other. Caitlin liked just grabbing them and cracking them on her own head!    

bathroom revamp

Call it nesting, a designer never being satisfied, or maybe spring fever... But whatever it is, things are happening at our house. Projects are afoot and we are changing things up and making things ready for baby #3! Stay tuned for lots of fun new home tour posts.

Paul and I decided to tackle the "kids bathroom" first. This is the bathroom right between the two kids' rooms and also serves as a guest bathroom when we have people over or staying with us. It needed a little... something. Enter Pinterest and the world of ideas and DiYs and I found just the thing. A pallet wall + towel hooks. We took a lot of tips and inspiration from this blog and this blog and then modified it to our needs. This was our project over conference weekend and it really came together pretty fast and we could not be more pleased with the end result. Some of Paul's best handiwork.

After the pallet wall and hooks we rounded it out with a new shower curtain and towels, accessories and wall art. It is now fun and colorful but also with a pop of the unexpected and rustic with the focal wall feature. We love it!
P.S. Narrow bathrooms are really hard to get decent pictures of. 

details: all materials for the wall including hooks were bought at home depot, shower curtain, kleenex box and lotion dispenser: Bed Bath & Beyond, towels: Garnet Hill, painting: TJ Maxx, green frame: Michael's, wall art and bottles: already had  

weekend review

-Thursday (4.11) We went to "This is the Place Heritage Park" with Tiffany Barnes and her kids and Heather Pack and hers. Caitlin LOVES London Barnes so anything would have been fun as long as she was there but the kids had a blast. They did the petting zoo, saw all the baby animals, went on a pony ride, got yummy donuts, rode the train, panned for gold, and played in the splash pad. Caitlin had no fear with any of the animals and loved making friends with them all. Nolan was his typical.. loved them from far away but more unsure as they got closer. His favorite was probably the train ride and yelling "all aboard!" I feel like we barely scratched the surface of everything to do there but it was a very fun morning in the most delightful weather!

-Friday the kids and I met up with Jamie and Missy to try out the new donut truck (two thumbs up) then met up with the boys to play at the park and have a picnic dinner.




















-April birthdays are in full swing! Saturday night we went to a Bowling party for Matt Bills and I bowled my usual horrible score but had a great time nonetheless. The boys went and saw "Captain America" movie afterwards.

-Sunday we had an early birthday dinner for Cassie at our house with all my siblings. Delicious dinner and fun with the cousins playing. Happy 22nd to Cassie!

April

The month is halfway over. We've been busy with life but at our normal pace I guess.
-The weather has been warming up and we can finally remember what it's like to spend time outside and actually enjoy it! I'm so thankful too because the kids would really prefer to be outside all the time if they could. The kids loving having picnics for lunch. They take turns "catching" each other on the slide and cheering for each other. They also like riding bikes and playing in Nolan's car.

-Conference weekend we worked on our bathroom project and had a big Sunday breakfast... along with an instacare visit for Caitlin.
On Saturday during the day the kids were playing outside and she must have fallen but no big dramatic fall or anything. She was acting fine then later on in the day she was saying that her leg hurt. I looked and saw a tiny bruise on her knee cap and figured that's what she was talking about. When dinner time came she said she didn't want to walk on it so I just obliged and carried her to eat her dinner, then back to the couch then to bed eventually. She wasn't acting overly in pain, mostly just tired and lazy with her leg so I gave her some tylenol before bed and figured she needed a good night's rest. Fast forward to less than 2 hours after putting her down when she woke up crying from the pain. We moved around her leg and pin pointed that something must be wrong around her knee. However she was still able to bend and move it so again we tried to get her to go to sleep. Eventually that night she kept waking up so we moved her to sleep in our bed (something we NEVER do) and she slept between Paul and I waking us up alternately about every 20 minutes because her leg hurt. We decided when morning finally came that after a night like that we better have it checked out. We still weren't sure what was really going on or if there WAS anything, but better safe than sorry. Paul gave her a priesthood blessing before we left and we talked to her about it. He blessed her that she could calm down and not be in pain and be brave for the doctor and feel safe. We took her to the instacare and spent 2+ hours there waiting to see the doctor and figure things out. We ended up seeing the PA who ordered 2 xrays of her legs. Caitlin was being really good but still acting in pain. We told her the doctor would help her feel better. Paul took her into the x-ray rom (I couldn't go in because I'm pregnant) and she was really whimpery and sad while they were setting up. Then as they began taking picture all of the sudden she sat up and said "Oh! I feel better! Daddy my leg is better!" and started wiggling her legs! She came walking out to me in the waiting room (limping still but she hadn't been walking at all beforehand) and told me she was all better. Paul and I were shocked and confused to say the least. Sure enough the x-rays came back looking completely fine and they sent us on our way with nothing more than some stickers and suggestions to use tylenol or ibuprofen as needed. Thirty minutes after getting home Caitlin was completely back to herself, walking normally and dancing around the house.
At first Paul and I were a little bugged that we had spent all that time to not have a diagnosis and confused by Caitlin's actions. But then we realized it really was a huge blessing. We may never know what really happened, if anything, to her leg. My guess is that she may have tweaked it a little and as she was holding it still for so long if she moved it at all during the night it was shooting pains that would hurt and scare her but then once she was up for the day and moving around a little more it worked itself out. Who knows. But it was a sweet experience for Paul to give her a blessing and we are very thankful that nothing was wrong with her and that everything worked out for the best.
So the weekend didn't go exactly as we thought but we are grateful for the ultimate outcome. Also grateful that all the messages from Conference are online and we have ben able to re-read and ponder again messages we may have missed.

-Nick and Jamie Hansen welcomed baby Luke on April 8th! He is so sweet and it made me so excited for our baby coming. We love the Hansens and their little family.