1. For sisters that adore one another.
2. For my amazing, supportive, sweet, thoughtful husband. {photo by Bliss}
3. For this smiley, happy girl.
4. For this silly, happy girl.
5. For my sisters.
6. For snuggle naps.
Girls…my sweet girls.
Please do your mama a favor. Just stop.
Please stop growing. My mama heart can’t take it.
Rylee…you are so excited to be 4 and a half that you’re telling just about everyone you come in contact with. You even wondered why we didn’t throw a party to celebrate. The other night you chose steamed cauliflower over steamed broccoli. Your favorite meat is still venison, though you love a good steak. You’re a sensitive one…most recently, you cried at the end of Free Willy because you were so happy he was free, but sad that his friend wouldn’t get to see him anymore. Art is still one of your favorite past times and lately you’re really into “making books” and “filling our paperwork”. You’ve started writing just “Ry” on the pictures you color. You’re in the “green group” at school…that means you know all your letters and numbers and can write them well. You’re getting pretty good at holding your sister and you love doing it. You love the Beach Boys. I joke with you at least a few times a week about putting a book on your head to make you stop growing. You giggle every time. You adore your pink sparkly shoes. You’re a little firecracker and you’ve got sass to spare. One of your favorite things to do is take selfies with my phone. The faces you make are priceless. You have become fast friends with the little girl down the driveway, Ruby. You were playing over at her house the other night when her dad called us asking if you could stay for dinner. Your dad & I didn’t know what to do…we weren’t ready for that {especially your dad}. I have a feeling slumber parties are just around the bend.
Reese…4 months. I can’t believe it. You complete this family and we all love you so, so much. The week before last you rolled over…you’d been oh-so-close for week or two and you finally got that arm out of the way. You recently found your thumb. Just last weekend we bought some pacifiers…you’ve been doing pretty well with those. Any time you’re lying on your back you’re grabbing your feet and trying to get your toes in your mouth. You’ve been sleeping through the night since the beginning of October. Your bedtime is about 7:30 PM these days…give or take a 1/2 hour. You just graduated to the “big bottles”. Just last weekend I had to break out the 3-6 month clothes…and I’ve officially packed up your newborn clothes. Girl, you love your groceries! You rarely cry. You are such a happy girl…and so talkative! I jokingly called you a screaming banshee the other night…lucky for you the nickname “banshee” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. You adore your big sister. You’re getting pretty good at reaching for toys and they instantly go straight to your mouth. You’re quite the drool-bug latetly…I hope you’re not teething already. I’m trying to savor every last second with you as a baby because I know just how fast it goes and, unless by some divine intervention, you will be our last baby.
I love you both more than words could describe.
xoxo,
Mama
Ok…today is day 13, officially. Here’s last week’s outfits.
While the challenge is a no outfit repeat, I’ve done well with not even repeating any tops…pants & shoes totally don’t count.
Friday I dubbed “hot mess Friday”…I think my face says it all. Even my top-knot was a mess…and I didn’t even know it was possible to screw one of those up. But, bonus points for wearing my hair down 3 of the 5 days last week.
Tuesday was definitely my favorite day out of the week…
Blazer: LOFT / White top: Target / Skinnies: Target / Shoes: Blowfish / Earrings: Target
Fun story about my necklace…it used to be an earring. True story. The earrings actually came in a 2-pack along with the gold feather earrings I was actually wearing in my ears that day. But, I didn’t really like them as earrings. So that morning, I took off the earring hook and threaded it onto my gold chain. Win!
And I seriously, seriously love my new shoes from Blowfish…they’re the ones I won at the PNWBlogger Holiday party. Super comfy!
All in all, I’m pretty proud of myself for sticking with this challenge. I’m rediscovering & pulling pieces out of my closet that haven’t been worn in a very long time.
I’m linking up with Working with Style over at Liberating Working Moms!
I’ve got about eleventy-billion one-quarter written blog posts swirling around in my head. Instead of either a) trying to find time to finish them all or 2) just flat out not even starting them, I figured I’d toss all these random thoughts into one blog post…like a goulash of sorts. {For the record? This will be the only kind of goulash allowed in my house.}
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We moved the changing table we had in the master bathroom out. It’s been in there since before Rylee was born. Not sure how I feel about this.
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This weekend I unpacked the 3-6 month clothes and officially put away the newborn clothes. I’m kind of sad about it. I did keep a few of my favorite pieces out to save…like what the girls wore home from the hospital…don’t tell Andy, he’ll totally make fun of me. Now we need to figure out what we’re going to do with all of the outgrown clothes. I’m going to look into donating it.
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Reese started rolling over last week. Now she’s rolling over and reaching for toys. Yesterday, Andy said she rolled halfway across the room just to get something. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
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Time really needs to stop. Or at least slow down. Because…just…yea…
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Don’t tell anyone, but I’m really looking forward to decorating for Christmas. I blame pinterest.
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Sometimes, when I have leftover homemade mexican food for lunch, I wait until really late to eat because I have this feeling that if I go into the lunch room to heat up my lunch the kitchen crew, who happens to be 90% Mexican-American, will totally judge me for my “not really authentic” enchiladas, empenadas, nachos, etc. Totally dumb. I know. {I KNOW!}
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I finally updated my “weekly dinners” tab up there. I promise I’ll be better about updating that {though not a hard thing to promise considering I hadn’t updated it since…oh…April.}
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I’m just over a week into my “no outfit repeat” challenge. I posted about it here. Ask me how I feel about it in another two weeks.
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Rylee is still struggling with me sometimes. I know it’s because she’s reaching out for my attention. I really need to be better about that.
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There has been some major construction going on in the office. It’s been really loud. And annoying. So things at the office are booming…both literally and figuratively.
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I’m wearing some new shoes today. I won a free pair of shoes at the PNWBlogger Holiday Party from Blowfish Shoes. I really needed a new pair of brown flats. I am in love. They are so comfy! And their customer service was fantastic to boot. {see what I did there!?}
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And last but certainly not least!? It’s Tuesday…you know what that means? NCIS & Tacos, suckas!!!
This parenting gig is funny. Just when you feel like you’re hitting your groove, something comes up and you’re completely thrown off guard.
Case in point? Ladies and Gentlemen? We have a thumbsucker.
Rylee was never a thumbsucker. Never even took a pacifier. Never. Not even once. Don’t get me wrong, she figured out other ways to self-sooth. At a pretty young age, she developed a habit of sucking on her tongue by folding it in half in her mouth, if that makes any sense at all. Then just around the 1-year mark she discovered the love of blanket she’d never even used before and has hardly been a day without it since.
I get the idea of self soothing. And trust me, I encourage it! The last thing I want to do is use my nipples as a calming mechanism. No.Thank.You.
But since I never dealt with the thumbsucking with Ry, I’m kind of at a loss. As soon as Reese discovered her thumb, we figured we’d nip it in the bud and we started covering her hands with those newborn gloves. No luck. She’d either wriggle out of them or just suck right though them.
A couple of times we kept her from sucking her thumb while she was going down for a nap. Sure after an excruciating amount of time, she eventually fell asleep. Then no more than 20 minutes later when I went in to check on her she was sucking her thumb. In her sleep.
Within the last couple of weeks, we’ve kind of given up.
So now I’m at the crossroads of, do we continue on with allowing the thumbsucking, or do we try and transition to a paci?
There’s pros & cons to both. And there’s definitely not a lack of passionate opinions from people on the subject, either.
To be perfectly honest, I’d really prefer neither, but I feel like there’s obviously a reason she’s doing it. Sucking is the way she’s self-soothing, so at this point I’m just trying to figure out which is going to be the lesser of the evils.
She obviously already knows where her thumb is and has no trouble getting right into her face parts. If she had a paci and it fell out in the middle of the night, the last thing I want to have to do is get up, walk across the house just to stick it back in her mouth. That kind of defeats the purpose of self-soothing, no? Then again, there’s the argument that it’ll be easier to break the paci habit…I don’t want a thumbsucking 12 year old.
Not going to lie, I kind of think the thumbsucking is cute, but that doesn’t stop my practical side from taking over. All I see are dollar signs and orthodontic bills in my future every time she does it.
This girl is growing and changing daily. In some ways, she is so much like her big sister and in other ways, not at all. I’m loving every minute of it, but she’s definitely keeping us on our toes!
As with so many parenting issues/decisions I feel like this one is to be continued…
Oh, and did you see my post yesterday?
Happy Friday!