Crafting

For a couple of recent family home evenings we thought it would be fun to do some classic crafting projects with Amelia. Mostly it turns out that Jonathan does all the work and Amelia eats all the candy. Dang.  Maybe she's still a little too young. Next project I think will involve less candy and more crayons, although no promises that she won't eat those.

For Thanksgiving we made apple turkeys:

Then last night Amelia was SO excited to build a gingerbread village that a friend gave us. I think the next gingerbread house we'll make is when she's about 10.  Seriously, we might as well have put a bowl of candy in front of her and called it a night. :)  Anyway~ it turned out pretty cute!

                                                                     Working hard ;)

So proud of "her" village"

Happy Holidays!

Tidbits

I dyed my hair dark! To which Elsha replied, "It's not that dark." Which, its actually not. It's pretty similar to my natural hair color, but it's a lot darker than I've had it in a while. Now I just hope it grows fast!

This is Addilyn's new favorite face these days.

 The weather has been so beautiful lately, so we've been spending a lot of time enjoying the sunshine, and our cousins.

And riding our bike!

 The other day I told Amelia to go put shoes on so we could run errands and this is what she came out wearing.  It was a proud parenting moment for me.. How cute are those boots?!

 Addilyn's favorite thing to do these days is wrestle Khloe.  Of course Khloe hates it and yelps when she squeezes too tight, but she'll never get up and leave the room, or even the couch if that's where they are, so really she's the dumb one.

Things are pretty routine and normal around here.  Everyone is doing well and I'm just getting fatter by the day (although my doc told me I've only gained 16 lbs, I feel like I've gained about 60.)
We're SO excited that my parents are coming to Pueblo in a couple days for Thanksgiving, and can't wait for all the food and festivities to come in the next couple weeks!

Halloween 2012

Right after we got our cute little black dog Khloe, (by the way, we didn't name her or spell it that way, it was like that on her collar) in August, I suggested that we dress as The Wizard Of Oz characters for Halloween so that Khloe could be Toto! I called my mother-in-law, who is an amazing seamstress and our go-to Halloween costume maker. Oddly enough (I wasn't shocked, but you might be) she already had the patterns for Dorothy and the Lion that she had purchased in years passed for "just in case." Of course their costumes turned out AMAZING, with Addilyn's consisting of more than 40 yards of ribbon!

                                                This Lion needs to get some courage! hehe
                                       (This costume is going down in history as one of my favorites)

Amelia's dress was adorable, along with her matching basket and hair bows

I chose to be the Tin Man so that we could have my costume cover my belly

And we thought that Jonathan actually kind of looked like the scarecrow from the movie, so he wanted to be him.

Here's the whole gang!

I love doing family themed Halloweens! I know they're just going to get harder, so maybe we'll have to start just doing the girls.  How about the 3 fairies from Sleeping Beauty? Cute. 

I hope you all had a very happy Halloween!

Crazy busy day

Often my days are pretty boring, but since Wednesday is Jonathan's day off we schedule all our "to-do's" for that day, which makes them pretty busy. Today was especially busy, and I'm just going to kill 3 birds with one stone here because we all know how bad I am at blogging.

We started our morning with Addilyn's 1 year doctor appointment.  Her stats are: Weight: 16.2 lbs, Height: 27 1/4 inches, and I don't remember her head circumference but I'll tell you that NONE of her stats are on the charts. Smallest 1 year old ever. Ha! I'm anxious to see how our next baby turns out.  Addilyn is as cute and fun as ever these days.  She loves to discover her voice and often screams at the top of her lungs for no reason. She's way louder than Amelia ever was.  She says "Hi' and loves to stand at the screen door whenever anyone leaves and say, "Bye Bye" about 100 times. She has signed "all done" a couple times, but not on a regular basis, so we're still working on that one, but I also realized that we don't really teach her any other signs, so we should probably get on that. She sleeps from 6pm to between 6-7am, which is amazing considering how Amelia always (still) sleeps, but Addilyn is a TERRIBLE napper, (1 nap a day for about 45 minutes) and I don't know which is worse. Again, we'll see how number 3 turns out.

Big sister, little sister shirts

We went straight from Addilyn's appointment to the bank so we could close on our loan for our new car!!  We knew that we would need a new car when the new baby came because I couldn't fit 3 car seats into my Hundai Sonata.  We went back and forth on a lot of different ideas and had done a lot of research on different options.  Jonathan was REALLY pushing me to get a minivan, which I understand the practicality of them, but I am SOOO not ready to be a minivan mom and honestly don't think I ever will be.  He was so into it though, that a couple weeks ago he approached me with "I have a proposition for you" and a million thoughts flooded my mind in about 1 minute. He said if I agreed to get a minivan that we could sell his Jeep to get it and he would drive the Hundai. Now, if any of you know Jonathan and his love affair with his Jeep, this was the shocking news of the century! Honestly I was speechless for about 10 minutes. So I'm just going to claim Best Husband of the Year for that one! Anyway~ on our 5 minute drive to Kirsta's house we noticed an Acura MDX parked in someones driveway with a for sale sign on it, and Jonathan happened to know that it had 3rd row seating. The night he made me his famous proposition I told him before we made any drastic decisions to just call on the Acura and see if it would be something we'd be interested in. We called and we were interested.  We test drove it and we were interested.  A few days later we made an offer and HE was interested! It all went relatively fast and today we sealed the deal. Now I'm the proud new owner of this:

Amelia has said 1,000 times, "I LOVE your pretty new car, Mom!"

After naps we gathered our belongings and met up with the Jacob's clan and headed to the pumpkin patch!

Got ourselves some good looking pumpkins to carve next week.  Addilyn slept through the whole thing, which was fine by me! Anything for a nap :)

What a wonderful day!! And now I have NOTHING to do tomorrow, lol. :)

Happy Birthday Addilyn!

Addilyn is officially 1 year old today! I seriously cannot believe it.  As dumb as it sounds, it seems like a year of her life has passed but not of mine. How does that happen?! I guess it's a good thing that she's already 1 though, since we have another one on the way, and I'd hate for them to be TOO close together!

Anyway~ we had a party for her last weekend since that's when my parents were in town. Of course the weather all that week was in the high 70's, and the week after was the same, but the day of her birthday it was 40 degrees. Boo! So we moved the party inside, and were happy when people canceled at the last minute since our house only fits about, well, us. We served apple cider and crock pot hot cocoa (which sadly, I never tried) and Jonathan and Tom made these beauties:

                                                                            Big Bird

Oscar the Grouch

  Cookie Monster- this one is my fault because he was supposed to be made of blueberries and blackberries, but they were crazy expensive so I thought I could substitute- Wrong.

Elmo

Not that Addilyn is into Sesame Street at all, actually she's never even seen it, but I saw these on Pinterest and thought it'd be a cute way to serve veggies.

Then of course we had cake:

I'm a little mad at myself.. My Dad's birthday just so happened to be the day after this party and he turned 61, so we made him a "6" cake and set it right next to this "1" cake, and for some reason I didn't get a picture of them together! Grr. Anyway~ happy birthday to you, too, Dad!

Of course Addilyn was spoiled rotten with clothes, books and toys, and her favorite gift of all- al bag full of squeezable baby food from the Jacobs clan!

Happy happy birthday to my baby (not for too much longer), "bubs".  We love you, Addilyn!

Thoughts on a 3rd girl

IT'S ANOTHER GIRL!  Seriously, I'm baffled.  Not because I thought it was a boy, because from day one of this pregnancy I've said I just felt like it was a girl.  But all girls?! What are the odds?  When I was pregnant with Amelia we really wanted a boy, just because in the grand line up of all our kids we wanted the boy to be the oldest. Jonathan will never admit it but he was disappointed to find out it was a girl.  He had just envisioned his little buddy learning how to play sports and work on cars with him. That all changed as soon as Amelia was born, and within a couple weeks he told me that he wanted to have 3 girls.  So, it's all his fault.

Honestly, I'm terrified to raise girls.  I'm terrified to raise one girl, much less three! Yes, it's because of myself.  I was a horrible, awful person to my parents (and possibly some other people) from about age 12-22. That's a loooooong 10 years! And I don't consider myself naive to the ways of the world, and I know they're just getting worse, and I want to put my girls in a bubble until they're 25.  I really have to take a step back and think about all the girls I know that DIDN'T rebel like I did, and hope that my girls are like that!  Two people that come to mind are my sisters!  I'm going to be raising my girls on stories of the wonderful things that their aunties did. :)

On the other hand, I'm SO SO happy to have "my girls".  Of course I'm a tiny bit sad for Jonathan to not have gotten his little buddy, but if you've ever spent time with Jonathan and Amelia, I think he'd tell you that no boys are needed, because Amelia is the best buddy he always wanted.  I was a little worried that if we had a boy he would grow up very feminine since he'd be surrounded by girly things, so at least we don't have to worry about the third wheel! Also, how easy is it going to be to have another girl?! I mean, I know you all have seen how many girl clothes and toys we have.

I also consider this a service to my parents.  My siblings are seriously slacking on producing girls so we'll just have to make up for it.  This will be the 11th grandchild on the Gustavson side, and it will be the 5th girl. If it weren't for us, they'd be drowning in a sea of boys, and boys have cooties. HAHAHA.

Anyway~ here I am at 20 weeks:

And take my word when I tell you that I am WAY bigger at 20 weeks than I was with the other girls.  Oddly enough, I'm embracing it way better than I would think I would.  I think it's because I know it's my last time, and I'm just taking it all in. I feel great, and I'm LOVING the "new" winter maternity wardrobe from Elsha and Kirsta, since I've never had a winter pregnancy! 

Baby Jacobs!

Kirsta finally had her baby! After a few looooong weeks and being SURE it would come the day she took castor oil (it didn't), Ethan Edward Jacobs arrived September 22 at 8:24 am.  7lb 3oz, 19 1/2 inches.

Ever since they moved to Pueblo Kirsta had been insistent that I be in the room with her when said baby arrived.  Pretty much the ONLY reason I wanted to be in there was so I could be one of the first people to know the gender, which they opted not to find out early, much to my dismay.  I know that she was there for both my girls births, but she WANTED to be there. I, on the other hand, am completely freaked out by the whole labor and delivery process, even when it's my own babies, but then I can't avoid it. Being in the room for someone elses labor did not help me to be any less freaked out.  She did an amazing job though! Especially since she had no drugs and ended up pushing for over an hour! But oh man, when she was screaming, "Get it out!"  I wanted to scream, "GET IT OUT!"   But seriously, the second that baby was out she was back to 100% normal.  Smiling, laughing, and wondering what was for breakfast.  Amazing.

Here's the beautiful bundle that makes it all worthwhile:

 His new favorite Aunt (sorry Elsha and Amy)

 Nothing makes Addilyn look big except a 7lb new baby!

Congratulations Kirsta and Joe! I love him so much already. Can't wait for you to be in the room with me in February!

Our Journey to the Temple

As some of you may know, I was raised Mormon. My parents were strong in their faith and did all they could to raise well-rounded children who were also strong in the faith.  Everyone ultimately chooses their own path in life and for me, it was not following the Mormon religion. 

Jonathan was raised Baptist.  He was strong in his faith and loved attending church and youth group and ultimately that's where all his friends and aquantinaces and memories came from. 

By the time we met and married neither one of us was "strong" in any religion, and we were ok with that.  It wasn't until I was pregnant with Amelia that we started discussing going back to church because we knew we wanted to raise our kids in a religion, we just weren't too certain which one. We tried out the Baptist church and we tried out the Mormon church but we were really just pretty lazy on Sunday's and would rather watch football than go to any church.  A few more months went by and I decided I really wanted to meet some stay-at-home moms if I was going to become one of them myself, and from all I knew the best place for me to do that would be at the Mormon church.  A poor excuse to go back, but it brought me back to church and I am more than grateful for that.

More than getting me back to church, I'm grateful that I married a man who wasn't completely turned off by going to a Mormon church.  I mean, let's face it, not everyone jumps at that opportunity. :) There was no pushing or pursueding, there were no arguements, but from the beginning he said, "I'm comfortable where I'm at, I'm happy where WE are at, I'm 30 years old and I don't think I need to convert religions to make my life any better than it is."  And that was ok with me.  We agreed though, that whatever WE were going to do, WE were going to do together, and how lucky I am that he was open to what I was comfortable with.

Over the course of weeks and months we started attending church on a semi-regular basis, going to "investigators" nights at newly made friend's houses, and having the missionaries over to dinner on occasion.  We became good friends with one set of missionaries in particular and we found ouselves hanging out with them a lot.  They would help us with our projects around the house and then teach us, or Jonathan, lessons about The Church. And over the course of weeks and months Jonathan became very receptive to the things they were teaching.  Things started to come together, to make sense to him in a way that religion had never made sense before, and all his doubting questions were being answered in a way that made him start to believe that the things he was learning were true. All the while, I was being "re-converted" to a church that I had never given a chance.

In March, 2011, Jonathan decided to be baptized.

One of the most valued principals of our church is that families are eternal, not just until death do you part. We believe that if you live worthily you are able to go to the Temple to be sealed together as an eternal family.  We are thrilled to have been given that opportunity on August 11, 2012. 

I thought I would write this blog for a few reasons:  For all the people who saw my Facebook pictures and had questions, especially, "Kari is doing WHAT these days?",  for myself as a reflection of how much has changed in the past 4 years for the better, and for everyone who had no idea because I am never vocal about religion.  My hope is that this doesn't taint anyone's view of me or Jonathan, just gives a glimpse into our lives right now, how happy we are, and how blessed we feel.

15 weeks

I'm 15 weeks along now in this 3rd pregnancy thing, and right now I feel pretty good and normal.  Before I knew I was pregnant I woke up one night to feed Addilyn and when I got out of bed both of my legs from the knees down pretty much felt like they were broken. (To which Jonathan scoffs and says, "you don't even know what broken legs feel like") but seriously, they hurt SO bad. Especially my feet.  It was hard to walk, especially up and down the stairs. I was pretty convinced I had leg cancer and that they would both have to be immediately amputated, but then luckily a few days after this started I took a positive pregnancy test!  Then I was just really hoping that the two were related, and I could scratch out getting my legs amputated.  Turns out, my doc said it was early edema (pregnancy swelling) and not to worry.  Worry or not, it sucked.  It lasted about 2 months and then gradually went away, and I'm grateful it's gone, and really hoping it doesn't return.

Another annoying symptom I've had is being annoyed (ha!).  I'm annoyed at my kids, I'm annoyed at other peoples' kids, I'm annoyed at random people and random situations like I know I shouldn't be. It's very frustrating.  At least I'm aware it's happening so I know to keep my mouth shut a lot of times instead of burning a lot of bridges.

Some things I've been craving so far include: milk. Tons of milk. Like, a gallon by myself in 3 days.  Pasta salad. Green olives. Pizza rolls. Crunchy tacos from taco bell. Arby's, except now I've eaten way too much Arby's and I probably won't eat it again for a while. Maple and brown sugar oatmeal with toast. And orange juice.

Anyway- so far this pregnancy is dragging. I'm like, "Seriously, only 15 weeks by now?! Blah." And it's not that I hate pregnancy, but being pregnant again makes me very sure in saying I don't want to do it again.  Hopefully everything continues to go smoothly and we are so excited for October 4th when we find out if it's a girl or boy!

Addilyn

Addilyn is 10 months old now! On one hand, where did the time go?? On the other hand, when Amelia turned 1 I thought she was such a big girl, and I still think Addilyn is such a baby.  Maybe it was just because Amelia was my first.  Anyway~ Addilyn is getting more fun by the day, and for some reason I have a connection with her that I never had with Amelia.  That being said, I'm going through a phase right now where I kind of want someone to take Addilyn for like, a week so I can love her more, because I'm kind of tired of her.  Maybe it's because she gets up at 5:30 every day and is a terrible napper, so I'm pretty much with her ALL day. You would think that putting her to bed at 6pm makes me have adequate time without her but no.  Don't get my wrong, I love her to death and smother her with kisses, but she's buggin' me. :) 

She's crawling like a maniac, which I love because it means less I have to carry her around.  She'll eat anything you put in front of her, any time of day.  Literally I can't think of anything she won't eat. Even dog food.  She says, "Mama" and, "Dada" and sometimes it really sounds like she says, "Hi" and, "dog" but I think that's unintentional.  So far it's looking like she is the child we'll be at the doctor with the most.  Amelia has NEVER had to go to the doctor for anything but a well visit, whereas Addilyn was on oxygen from day 1 because they thought something was wrong, she has been to the doctor 3 times for ear infections, the ER once for a bad fall, and had multiple other minor injuries at home.  Hopefully she slows down because I don't think I can handle much blood or anything broken. :( Now I'll quit babbling and post some recent pictures.

At Amelia's birthday party she reached in the pizza box and helped herself to a piece. It took about 2 hours but she gummed down a good portion of it!

Eating, again, fresh peaches off our tree

She's very stoic most of the time. And I realize the headband is in a weird place but she had a scab on her forehead that we were covering.  Thanks for the headband, Bailey!

Amelia turns 3!

Today is Amelia's 3rd birthday, and I'm having a hard time actually believing that 3 years in my life has passed. Every day with Amelia is a new adventure, and she says the most hilarious things sometimes, I wonder if she'll have a great sense of humor someday. I saw a cute idea on Pinterest where you interview your child every year on their birthday with the same questions and see how their answers change each year. Here is my interview with Amelia:

1. Favorite movie: Bambi
2. Favorite Color: Blue
3. Favorite food: Yogurt
4. Favorite song: Twinkle Twinkle
5. Favorite animal: Kangaroo
6. Favorite stuffed animal: Green Parrot (Came with the book "Oh Say Can You Say")
7. Favorite drink: Chocolate milk (I tried to convince her that I thought it was actually juice but she was adamant)
8. Favorite toy: She said, "My train." I said, "Oh that's a good one." And she said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I meant my turtle." haha.  Her bouncing turtle.
9. Best friend: Patrick (Jacobs)
10: Favorite article of clothing: Shirt. "No special one, just a shirt" she said.
11. Favorite book: The Lorax (pronounced YoYax)
12. Favorite place to go: Children's houses. (Friend's houses)
13. Favorite breakfast: French toast
14. Favorite Fruit: Cantaloupe
15. Favorite game: We never got an answer
16. Favorite Holiday: Easter
17: Favorite thing to take to bed: Blue and pink blankets
18: Favorite cereal: Marshmallow (Lucky charms)
19: What do you want to be when you grow up: A Mommy

With all of these questions I would give her time to think, give her some options if she needed them, and even ask her the same questions a few days later to see if her answer changed, but it never did.  I can't wait to see how they change over the years.

For her birthday Jonathan and I decided to get her a dog! Crazy right? I've never had a pet in my life, not even a gold fish, so I really have no idea what I'm in for.  A couple months ago my friend asked me to dog-sit her dog for the weekend. I'm not a dog person but this was a little dog and I do like little dogs more. Well, after just 3 days with that dog we wanted to keep him! We actually asked my friend if she wanted to get rid of him and she said, "No, but my mom has his sister and she wants to get rid of her!"  Not because she's a bad dog or anything, I guess her mom had gotten another dog who wasn't very nice to Khloe. So, we said we'd take her! Last night was the big reveal. Here's how it went:

What's in there?

Really?! A doggie?

YAY!!

Then she spent the rest of the night bossing her around :)

Wish us luck!  Happy birthday to the light of my life (most days), Amelia!! We love you.

U is for unmotivated

Most of you may have seen this already:

I'm PREGNANT! Yay.

If there is one word that I would use to describe my state of being right now it's: UNMOTIVATED. It's not tired. I mean, I'm tired too but I've been pregnant enough to know the difference between these two feelings. For instance, if I go to bed at a reasonable time at night, the next day I don't need to nap.  But I have 3 loads of laundry from 3 different days sitting in a hamper in my room waiting to be folded which is SO unlike me. I think about blogging every single day and then I'm like, "Nah, I'd rather just continue to sit here."  It's very annoying.  I went to the grocery store yesterday and pretty much walked around like a zombie and all I could think about was how much I wanted to leave.  What the heck?!

I think the solution to this blogging problem would be if someone would buy me a laptop, so I could do my blogging from the couch! Any takers?

I'm 10 weeks along right now so hopefully this doesn't last too much longer or I'm going to get pretty tired of myself, and my husband might not be so nice by the end.

Anyway~ sorry if it takes me another 2 months to write my next post. I'll just be over here reading all of your blogs!

Clothes

Amelia hates wearing clothes.  It's a huge battle every day in our house to get her to put her clothes on and then to keep them on.  She's sure that she's exempt from putting her panties and shorts back on EVERY time she goes potty.  I'm so relieved at the end of the day when I know we have nothing else to do and I can let her be naked. 

A couple days ago she wanted to go outside with Jonathan and he told her she'd have to put clothes on first.  She went to her room and came out wearing some bloomers from a dress that Melody made, and shoes.  He told her to go back to her room and put and shirt on.  She went back to her room and a little while later came out with no shirt on but was headed outside anyway.  I asked her, "Shouldn't you have a shirt on to go outside?"  She replied, "No, I'm jus' pullin' my pants up higher." 

I died laughing!

Anniversary

Jonathan and I just recently celebrated our 4 year anniversary! I seriously can't belive the amount of "life" we've packed in to the last 4 years! Whew.  Of course we took our annual trip back to the Botanic Gardens to reminiss about the day and try to explain to Amelia what marriage is. Toooootally over her head. :)

I know you all really want to see the timeline so here you go: ;)

Year 0:

 Year 1- unfortunately it was raining so we hurried and just took one of fat ol' me alone.

Year 2: Our small but happy family

Year 3: Pregnant with Addilyn

Year 4: Our growing family

Happy 4 years to us! Many more happy years to come!

Pickle Monster

Here's a conversation I had a couple weeks ago with Addilyn's Pediatrician:

Me: Addilyn is always reaching for my food, and I tend to give it to her. Can you give me a list of foods that I should NOT feed her?
Ped: Strawberries.
Me: Oops
Ped: Peanut butter
Me: Oops
Ped: Eggs
Me: Oops
Ped: Any dairy
Me: Including yogurt?
Ped: Yes
Me: Oops

I guess I was a little late in asking her.  Luckily, and oddly enough, the only thing Addilyn ever had a slight reaction to was applesauce. Who would've thought?  Anyway~ It's only with this second child that I'm realizing my grocery bill may increase someday. Amelia still eats like a bird.

Yummy strawberry!

I thought I would play a joke on her and give her a dill pickle spear, but she chowed the whole thing down without even a sour face!

I love that she eats, but sometimes I love not having to sit Amelia down for 3 meals a day and cook a large meal.  I guess we'll see how these girls both do over time.

Happy birthday to me!

Friday was my birthday. I turned 27. I'm not happy about it, but I'm trying to embrace it and be happy for all the wonderful things I have in my life at a young age.  It was a great day though! Jonathan went to work at 7am, but then surprised me and came home at 1.  I took advantage of that and left him home with the girls so I could get a pedicure.  Then we went and dropped off the girls at Melody and Tom's house so we could go out to dinner.  Back and Melody and Tom's we ate yummy banana cream pie and opened my gifts!

Melody and Tom got me this adorable wall hanging for lost socks (and money so I can treat myself. Yay)

My parents and Jonathan went in together to buy me this esthetician chair! Woo Hoo!

Thanks to everyone who made my day special.  Just think, only 2 more years until I stop aging!

Over the river and through the woods...

...To picture time we go!  Can I tell you that I never ever ever ever ever ever get tired of getting pictures taken?  I told someone that the other day and she said, "You know what?  You'll never look back at a picture and think 'I wish I wouldn't have taken that'" And I totally agree.  I've recently even thought about asking for one of those really nice cameras and the photoshop program for myself, but then I think I wouldn't love it as much anymore, so I'll just keep letting people take our pictures for  us!  My friend Raenie asked a group of girls if we would drive up to Beulah State Park with her so she could practice her photography skills and of course my answer was, "DUH!"  They turned out so cute!  See for yourself:



Could she get any cuter? (Bias much?)  :)

Amelia's new favorite thing is to show us that she's 2