Saturday, September 24, 2011

Kayla's Blessing

We had Kayla's blessing day picked out for a couple months before she was born.  The first Fast Sunday after her due date was 4th of July weekend and we knew she'd be here by then, for sure!  I found out my friend Janell and her family were going to be in Washington that weekend as well and it made for the perfect time to meet up.  I was even able to convince another friend of ours to come up and visit from Oregon.  The plans were in the works well before Kayla herself arrived.  It ended up surprising us all that she was only 2 weeks (well, 13 days) old when she was blessed, but she was still older than my sister who was 6 days old when she was blessed!

Kayla wore the same dress that me, my sister and Jilly wore for our blessings.  My mom made it when she was pregnant with me and it is gorgeous.  Because we waited until (chubby) Jilly was 2 1/2 months old to bless her, the dress didn't really fit and we could only do up the top button in the back.  She had a big open square of her back hanging out.  We figured Kayla being so little would fit perfectly in it.  I hadn't changed her into the dress until we got to church because it's too fluffy for the car seat (and I wanted to minimize her chances of blowing out all over it too).  We got to church right before Sacrament Meeting started, later than I had planned, so I was sitting there trying to get her in it, but it wasn't working right.  I couldn't get the back snapped up, other than the top snap, just like Jilly.  It was so weird, because it seemed like there was enough fabric, but one of the under layers was too tight.  My mom took her out to the Mother's Room to try and fix it, but time ran out and she came back so the baby would be there for her blessing. ;-)  So Kayla was also blessed with her dress open in the back.  Cracked me up.  (When we got home, I took the dress off of her to figure it out and realized on the the under layers had gotten pulled inside another layer and that's why it couldn't snap up.)

That morning, my friends had come over to my house to meet up before church.  It was so fun to see them!  Because we were all having such a fun time chatting, I lost track of time and we made it out the door just in the time to get to church right before the meeting started.  I had wanted to be there early, but oh well.  Janell, her husband Ira, and her two little boys, Anthony and Drew were staying with family in Poulsbo and came over on the ferry that morning.  Cammie and her husband Ethan decided to turn it into a long weekend vacation.  My cousins Bailey and Elise drove up from Seattle for the blessing and my mom and step-dad Paul came too.  It was awesome having so many people there, because they love Kayla and us.  It was also way fun because during the meeting itself, my kids got to sit with everyone else and I got to pay attention!  Kayla was held by Bailey and Granny, Jason and Jilly went back and forth between Granny, Grampa, Daddy and Bailey and Elise.  It was kind of weird to sit all by myself, but definitely nice.  :-)  After the meeting, we decided to head back to my house to hang out and eat and visit, since Janell, Cammie and I only had that day to spend together.  

We, of course, had to take pictures to commemorate the day.  We'd forgotten our camera before church, so we just took them at home.  

Kayla and Mama on the balcony.  Such a pretty girl. 


Mama and her sweet girls.  (Jilly wasn't that in to pictures, she wanted to play with the boys.)

Our cute little family of 5.  It is crazy how much more difficult it gets to take pictures with each kid you have!  To get all of us looking even remotely towards the camera seems like an impossible feat.

Cammie, Janell, and me (and Kayla, gotta love a yawning baby).  Such awesome friends!  I love you guys!

 I wish I had gotten some pictures with the kids playing or the husbands, but I didn't.  Janell and Cammie put together an awesome meal, Cafe Rio pork with yummy rice (was it the cilantro lime rice?).  They made the meal and cleaned it up!  These are good friends to have come visit you.  ;-)  We got to spend so much time talking and enjoying each other.  The kids got along really well, Janell's boys are about the same ages as my kids.  The husbands had a ton of fun talking and goofing around too.  Janell & her guys had to leave to catch the ferry back, but Cammie and Ethan stayed later.  It was awesome.

It was a wonderful day to share with our friends and family.  Steve gave Kayla a beautiful blessing.  We felt so honored that so many people wanted to be there with us and celebrate our sweet Ducky.  :-)

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Adventures in Potty Training

Jason's potty training....

Jason is proving to be quite a bit different from Jilly in so many ways.  One of the most surprising is that he has been asking to go potty since before Kayla was born.  We decided after she was born and he turned two, we'd give him a shot at potty training.  My philosophy was if he caught on and trained, then WAHOO!  Only one kid in diapers!  But if he didn't, then no biggie, I wasn't planning on potty training until 3 anyway.  So I waited until we had a week without anything going on and decided we'd go with the naked method.  It was what worked with Jilly, so I thought it'd be a good way to go.

Monday morning, we got up and took off his diaper, not replacing it with anything else.  Throughout the day, I set an alarm for every 30 minutes and took him to the frog potty each time it went off.  There were a few successes which were awesome, but there were puddles to clean up too.  Over the next couple days, he would go when I took him, even pooped once, but there were a lot of messes to clean up.  It didn't seem to be getting much better.  So after Thursday, I decided to be done.  He wasn't progressing enough, so I decided to save us both the hassle and stress.  We'll wait until he's a little older.  For now, he's in Pull-Ups and almost every time we change it, we take him to the potty and 95% of the time, he pees in the potty (even though he still pees & poops in the Pull-Up).

I'm glad we tried it.  It gave me more insight to where he is at developmentally and what his capabilities and limitations are.  He's growing and talking SO MUCH these days (new sentences every day), it can be easy to overestimate him.  All that said, I don't think it will be long until he's ready and I think once he is, it will be an easy process.  I think it really helped (same thing with his speech) that he's grown up watching us really coach and teach Jilly; he's soaked up a lot of those lessons.  He's such a cute little boy.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

First Day of School!

Jilly started her final year of preschool this week.  She goes 5 days a week now, still afternoons.  The bus picks up her about 12:30pm and drops her off about 4:00pm.  The first day of school was supposed to be a hot day, so I had to pick out a different outfit than originally planned.  


She was SO excited to wear her new light up Skechers shoes.  They are pretty awesome.

Waiting for the bus!  It was extra special because Daddy came home on his lunch break to see her get on the bus (and drive us down the hill, so I didn't have to walk down with all the kids the first day).

Here's the bus!  She's such a pro, she knows just what to do.

Jason was all excited and wanted special hair too.  So I gave him his "spike".

She has the same pick-up driver as last year.  Marcy watched me last spring as I got bigger and bigger and kept waiting for the baby to arrive, but of course Kayla didn't come until after school ended.  She was excited to meet Kayla, even offered to hold her while I buckled Jilly in.  :-)

All buckled in and on her way!

Here's to a great school year!  :-D

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Fancy Hair


I've gotten really bored with doing Jilly's hair lately, so I've been looking for inspiration and branching out.  We've done some really cute styles.  I'm still working on my proficiency, making things even and straight, but so far I'm happy.  Here's a sampling of some of the styles we've done recently.

I got the idea for this from PrincessHairstyles.com.  It was originally a baby hair style, so I modified a little and turned it into a ponytail for Jilly.







This is another from PrincessHairstyles.com.  It was the first time I've done twists.  I have some ideas of how I'll do them better next time, but I still like how they turned out.


I think I just thought this one up on my own.  It was slightly complicated with all of the criss-crossing, but it turned out really cool!


I've seen this one a few places.  I really like it because it holds all of her hair back and in the big ponytail.  It's not that hard either.  We've done it a few times since, and better each time (it's a little crooked the first time I tried).



This one was inspired by a friend of mine.  She does some amazing things with her daughter's hair and I had seen a cool criss-cross braid pigtails style.  I didn't do it right (only did 4 braids, it needed 6), but it was still fun.  The messy buns were falling out by the evening when I finally took a picture.

This is how I can get her to sit still for some of the styles.  Let her watch TV, watch a video or play with PhotoBooth on my laptop.

This one I thought up on my own, zig zag parted pigtails with twisty bun braids.  It's actually simpler than it looks and sounds.  I made two parts straight back creating a column of hair in the middle.  I took the two sides and put them in pony tails to keep them out of the way.  Then I just did a series of angled parts from one side to the other, then back again, creating the zig zag.  I pulled them into pigtails, put in the hair bands, then braided them.  Once I had the braids done, I just twisted them around the hairband and used a bobby pin to hold them.  I think next time I do them, I'll twist them a little different and tuck the tail in more.  


(This picture is a off center, so it looks more uneven than it was.)

Jilly has enjoyed doing "fancy hair".  Hopefully, we'll start doing more things.  I need to teach myself how to French braid properly.  Right now I only know how to inside-out braid, so I'd like to learn the other way too.  It's a lot of fun!  This is why I've always wanted a girl.  :-D  (It probably won't be too long until I can do stuff with Kayla's crazy hair too! See!)