Tenley sitting up!

She has been sitting up pretty good for a little while, but only for very short periods of time...until yesterday! The day after she turned 6 months old she was sitting up super good and for a really long time!  She still topples over eventually and she can't get into the sitting position by herself yet, but she is getting so big! I cannot believe she has already been with us for half a year, especially when I put into perspective how old Kaleb was when we got pregnant with her (he was only 7 1/2 months old) crazy!! No repeats of that hopefully!  We sure love our little Tenley!!

Silly Kaleb

I found Kaleb playing with my heels one Sunday morning, and he tried walking around in them for the longest time!  Now he does it almost everytime I'm putting things away in the closet.  It's super cute, but now I find myself searching for my shoes a lot!!

Daddy took him on the big kid slide and he loved it, even though the slide down was pretty slow :)  I think Jared is a little bigger than the kids that slide was designed for!

Jared was giving him a bath and told me to come in quick with the camera....this is what i found :)  He put the bowl on his head and thought he was pretty funny!  He is such a hilarious little guy and he manages to entertain us daily, we love you bubbas!!!

For Grandpa Tieman!

I know how much the family appreciates seeing videos and pictures of the kids (especially grandpa T!)  So here is one....there's a bunch more on my YouTube channel too!  http://www.youtube.com/user/schmucky45

a typical day at home

a little while ago I had a friend ask me what I do all day, since I am home with the kids. She said "i would get so bored being home all day" I just smiled and said something like, "not much" but inside I was laughing really hard, she is currently pregnant, so soon she will understand exactly what that "not much" really means :) What I should of said might have just scared her, haha!

Anyways, here are a few pics of some common things we are up to around here...

Tenley hanging out and watching her maniac brother

Kaleb trying to hide from diaper changes...he hates them, but I am not excited about potty training him!

Tenley posing for the camera...she almost always makes silly faces when i take pictures of her, guess she wanted to pose in a cute position instead

Kaleb being Kaleb, silly and always entertaining! He really is growing up so fast!!

Happy Happy Easter!

Easter was interesting this year...we had a sick Kaleb so we didn't make it to church and he wasn't his typical rowdy self all weekend either. Still, Saturday we colored our eggs...well mom and dad colored the eggs and the kids watched :) Let me restate that again, Kaleb watched and Tenley ate her toes....see below :)

Kaleb touched a couple of the eggs right after we dyed them, so they were still wet and he got some of the color on his hands. This is a boy who plays and eats dirt, so a little dye shouldn' hurt right? WRONG! it was the end of the world that his fingers turned blue :) He wouldn't even touch them when they dry! So hunting for eggs was pretty funny, he liked finding the eggs but refused to pick them up :)

Daddy also got Kaleb a new bubble gun for Easter. We seriously went through an entire bottle of bubbles so fast! It was pretty cute watching him squeal over them!! I sure do love watching those two play together! It was a fun day even with the sickie for a kid :)

Hanging Out

So I decided to take the kids for a walk today since our playgroup was cancelled....everything was too wet at the park! Anyways, I don't think I've mentioned this before, but there are a ton of hills around here! So everywhere we go, there is a lot of downhill and uphill walking. Soooo, as I'm huffing and puffing, and pushing the kids up one of the hills this woman comes jogging passes us with her dog. She gave a nice little smile, but I'm sure my returned smile looked something like a dying woman, who can barely make it up this hill :) Yah, I felt great about myself as she jogged on up, so needless to say I gotta take these kids out on walks more! Jared did make me feel slightly better by stating that I was pushing up a double stroller, thanks for trying honey :)

We stopped at the park, had some goodies, watched some golfers, and squealed at a few dogs...it was a good trip. On the way back home we saw this bad boy perched in a tree. I wish I had a better camera, because when he flew off I wanted a picture of his wings spread out, but my camera got a really crappy shot! You can't really tell by the picture but he was pretty big! the tree he was on is HUGE, so those branches are actually really big branches...they look kinda small in the picture.
It was a fun, quick little afternoon out of the house, which is pretty rare around here with all the ghetto wind! Here's to hoping for more cool, breezy days so we can enjoy this lovely weather!!!

Spring Time?

The first part of the video is SNOW and the rest is me bugging Kaleb about the snow :)

Tenley Jade

Since I did an update on the bubbas, I figured it was time for a little miss update as well...actually i haven't posted one on here since her birth so I am way behind, so this could get long! Our sweet little TJ just turned 5 months old, where has the time gone? My baby is growing so fast, I can't even keep up! When her brother was a baby, I was always looking forward to him growing and hitting new milestones...this time around I am in NO rush, and my heart breaks a little every time she does something new. She is certainly a fun little girl, and I just love this stage of babies! Ask me a few months ago and I might have tried to sell her to you :)

For the first 10-12 weeks of her life she was a difficult little diva! Seriously, everything that ever worked for Kaleb, DID NOT work for her! It was a little like learning to be a parent all over again, and the biggest thing I learned is that there is no golden rule to parenting, and my style has to adjust to each of my children's personalities. The hardest thing with her was the Colic, it's the worst feeling in the world to hear your baby cry for hours and absolutely everything you try doesn't help....it feels helpless. Many nights I would just hold her close and cry with her. There were a few nights where i would be driving around aimlessly at midnight with the radio cranked up and a screaming baby in the back seat. She would scream for hours and finally pass out, so I'd just let her sleep in the carseat. She also had some minor reflux issues, so I was getting zero sleep and zero dairy to help her reflux....sleep and dairy just happen to be 2 of my favorite things :) My sanity, along with Jareds was running very thin. Jared also worked long hours a lot at his new job, so adjusting to 2 kids alone was rough. I wished so badly that I could have someone just come and watch her even for a half hour, while I got some much needed rest, but living in a brand new state and knowing no one within a 6-8 drive left me feeling very lonely.

I would pray, she would cry, so I would pray harder and she would cry harder :) And on top of all that, I had a huge whopping pile of guilt on my heart, as I let Kaleb watch movie after movie while I tried to tend to his sister. Slowly, ever so slowly as the weeks passed she got a little better. I'd say about week 12 or so, she wasn't screaming her head off anymore for no reason. Loud does not describe her banshee scream, I am surprised the neighbors never called the cops...we do live in an apartment, so they had to hear her! I look back at those first difficult months now and I really am thankful for the experience. I learned a lot of love and patience that i never had to even think about before, and in those rare moments when she was quietly cuddling with me were pure bliss. I had this perfect baby girl, who I would do anything for and I've never felt so blessed!

I am happy to report that she is a happy, super energetic little squirt nowadays! Don't get me wrong, she still has some diva moments, but it's usually just when she is hungry or tired. She loves to smile and giggle, and NO ONE makes her laugh like her brother! I call her my little steamroller because she rolls all over the place! She drools likes no ones business, soaking through bibs and onesies like they're toilet paper! She loves to eat baby food, any baby food...and she makes yum yum noises the whole time she eats :) She is now sleeping about 6-7 hours after i put her down for bed, so I am no longer a zombie!! She is the sweetest most beautiful little string bean in the world!

We did run into one snag lately with her, she is now taking some formula...it's a super long story and this post is already long, but basically for reasons beyond my control, breastfeeding will be ending shortly. This was extremely heartbreaking for me and maybe it's because I had issues when I went back to work after having Kaleb that caused me to stop breastfeeding. I had this goal of getting to 1 year with Tenley, which is definitely not happening, so I was super depressed about it. I cried a lot, and bless my sweet husband, but as supportive as he is, I just felt like there was no way he could understand my pain and disappointment. At first I felt alone, I just wanted to go cry my eyes out to my mom or my sister and tell them all about it. So knowing I couldn't do that made me even more depressed, until finally I realized how stupid I was being. I got on my knees, poured my heart out to my heavenly father, and literally I instantly felt comforted and got the most clear message ever. I realized that putting expectations on myself like that weren't important, and that what is most important is just making sure my little girl was getting the nutrition she needed. It's funny, Tenley woke up from a nap right after this and she had this biggest grin on her face, I picked her up and she put her sweet little hand on my cheek and just smiled at me :) It was like she was telling me it's okay mom :)

She's been doing pretty good on the bottle and things are really good around here. I have 2 awesome kids and an amazing husband, who I love more than i could ever put into words! I feel so grateful and blessed for all they have given me!