Perfection

Addison came up to me and asked if she's been baptized. I told her no, that she would be baptized when she's eight. Then she said that after she was baptized she would be perfect, but she's already perfect because she's beautiful. I explained to her that just because she's beautiful doesn't mean that she's perfect. So then she says "wait a minute, let me look in the mirror". She looked in the mirror then came back to me and said "yep, I'm perfect!". What are they teaching her in primary? Just kidding, she has wonderful primary teachers.

What else is a girl to think when everyone always tells her how pretty she is? Perhaps I should lay off on the compliments, she's starting to get a big head. What it must be like to have such great self esteem. Oh how I love that girl!

Tasty Remedy

I've noticed in the last couple of weeks that I don't seem to be producing quite enough milk for Delilah at certain times of the day. We tried supplementing with a couple different kinds of formula but little miss has an extremely sensitive tummy and spends all night throwing up whenever we give her a bottle. Her pediatrician suggested that we try Nutramigen (which my sister calls "liquid gold" because it's so expensive) but apparently she doesn't like the taste of it because she refuses to eat it. So anyway, I started looking online for some suggestions on how to increase milk supply. I came across several articles indicating that many women claim eating about a cup of oatmeal a day works for them. Well I already eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast but it's only 1/3 cup. I also eat yogurt almost everyday with granola sprinkled on top but it still doesn't amount to one cup. One of the suggestions given in the articles was to bake oatmeal cookies and snack on a few of those throughout the day. What a wonderful excuse to eat cookies. After all, it's for the health of my baby right? Now I don't want anyone raining on my parade. If you happen to know either from experience or just plain common sense that this doesn't really work, please don't tell me. Let me live in blissful ignorance!

By the way, several articles also mention getting adequate sleep. Um, hello! I have a newborn baby and 2 other young children, how is that possible? Also beer, yep you read that right. I never would've thought that beer & breastfeeding were a good mix. Don't think I'll be trying that one. =)

Just for Ike

If you look over to my sidebar at Family & Friends you'll see that I added your name. Since you don't actually have a blog I had to enter my site address so if you click on it you'll just come back to me. I do apologize for excluding you in the first place, after all, just because you don't have a blog doesn't mean you're not family. Perhaps I should change the caption to "friends & family WITH BLOGS" for clarification purposes. Thank you for bringing this horrendous error to my attention. I hope to never fail you as a sister-in-law ever again. =)

Maybe you guys should start a blog though. It's a great way to keep up on what's going on in each other's lives. Just think about it. Love you guys!

New Year's Eve

We had a couple of sickos around here on New Year's Eve but we still managed to have fun. We started out by munching on plenty of yummy snacks while playing some new games the kids got for Christmas. Candy Land and Connect 4 are our new favorites around here.



Next we went on to the karaoke portion of our evening. Addison got a cute little princess CD player with a microphone for Christmas so we spent the rest of the night making all of the dogs in the neighborhood howl by singing at the top of our lungs to some of our favorite songs.

It is so cute listening to Addison and Urban sing. Addison LOVES to sing, she tells us all the time that she wants to be a singer when she grows up. She has a few favorite pop songs that she actually knows a lot of the words to, it cracks me up. Urban, on the other hand, is a rocker. He doesn't so much sing the words though as much as he hums along to the tune.
Jared & I attempted to teach the kids how to break dance, but seeing as how neither one of us actually know how to do it we weren't too successful. It pretty much just ended up being a somersault fest!

Eventually the kids gave up on the break dancing and just started playing the drums on my tummy. GOOD TIMES!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Grandma & Grandpa Estes

The week before Christmas Jared's parents came up from the Phoenix area to visit for about a week. They got to see Delilah for the first time and Addison was so super excited to see them.

For a little while it didn't seem like they were ever going to get here. They broke their necks trying to come see us...LITERALLY! Well, my father in law did anyway. They were in a really bad car accident near Nephi that totaled their car, broke my father in law's neck and banged my mother in law up pretty bad. It was quite scary when we got the call late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Jared went to the Provo hospital where his dad was taken to get his parents. He and his mom headed to the impound yard to get all of their possessions out of their car and then back to the hospital to get his dad once he was released. On the way back to our house they got a flat tire on the freeway so Jared had to pull off in the snow to change it. After that they were finally on their way. Luckily the accident was not their fault, and considering the severity of it their injuries could have been much worse.

We had a lot of fun visiting with them. I didn't get to hold Delilah all that much with Grandma being around, but since this is my first baby that she doesn't get to live by I had to oblige! Why is it that grandmas are so good with babies? Both of the grandmas are like infant sleeping pills. They can always get my babies to sleep even if they've been fussy for me. What's up with that? Addison & Urban loved having them around and getting some extra attention too. There were lots of loves & cuddles.
We did some shopping (grandma's favorite past time), visited Temple Square, watched Max & Ruby and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (the kids thought the name was funny so they wanted to watch it), played silly car games, made casseroles in our mouths (thanks for that by the way, we still use it to get Addison to eat better), sang songs & read books.

Jared and I had not even started our Christmas shopping by the time they got here so two nights after the kids went to bed we headed out to get it all done. It was so nice to be able to go out alone together. Otherwise we would have either had to take turns going or take the kids and try to hide things in the cart while distracting them.

My mother in law finished re-upholstering my chaise. She started it last year when they came to visit. I was supposed to finish it, but to be quite honest I never even attempted it because the task was a bit overwhelming for me. I knew I would mess it up somehow. I felt bad putting her to work, but she did a great job, it looks professional.

My father in law got me addicted to the General Tso's chicken in Wal-mart's deli. It is so yummy. I want it all the time now.

I feel so bad that their trip started out the way that it did, but I am so thankful that they're both okay. We had a wonderful week with them, it went by too fast. Although I was glad to get our bed back. The air mattress we were sleeping on kept losing air during the night, we kept waking up on the floor. Oh well, I'd do it again any time. We already miss you guys so much. Thanks for coming to visit. You are welcome any time. We love you. Take care of yourselves and get better soon!

This Christmas

December is almost over and I haven't posted a thing about this Christmas season. This month seemed to just fly by. I feel like I barely got all of the decorations put up and now it's time to take them down.

I love Christmas time. Faith strengthening experiences always seem to present themselves and this year was no exception.

We had a wonderful first Christmas with Delilah. It's always fun to celebrate the "firsts". We didn't take her to see Santa which I'm kind of sad about but she's still so young & little to be around a lot of people with so much sickness going around. Jared took Addison & Urban to our ward Christmas party though and they were able to sit on Santa's lap there. I knew Addi would be fine, but I wasn't sure about the Urbster. He's very temperamental these days. But Jared said that he did really well with Santa. I'm sure the fact that he had candy to give out had something to do with it.

Here are the kiddos on Christmas eve after we got home from our annual appetizer dinner at Aunt Heather's house.

We always let the kids open one present on Christmas eve and it's always cute pajamas to wear that night (I think everyone has this same tradition!).

This year their Aunt Julie & Uncle Jason sent pajamas up for them and they were adorable. They did such a good job picking out exactly what each of the kids are into. Addison & Urban were super excited. THANK YOU SO MUCH! We love you guys.

Opening presents Christmas morning.

Well what do you know, he got some super hero dress up stuff. Doesn't he look cute as Spider man? Hopefully now he'll stay away from the Snow White dress. Probably not though. After all of the presents were opened we found Urban playing with the Barbie stuff Addison got and Addison was playing with the G.I. Joe stuff Urban got. They seem to be a bit confused.

I love these two pictures. They really do love each other...and sometimes they even act like it!

Daddy multi-tasking. =)

And of course I didn't get a single picture of the entire family but don't you worry your pretty little heads, I'll be putting my sister to work very soon.

I don't like it!

Nope, not one little bit. Delilah's hips are displaced so she has to wear leg braces that spread her knees out and pushes them up in order to force the ball into the socket. The contraption is more like a full body harness. It goes up over her shoulders and around her chest. It probably doesn't bother her nearly as much as it bothers me (babies are pretty limber) but it just looks so uncomfortable. It makes every little tiny task like changing her diaper, dressing her or nursing her much harder than it needs to be. It is also much more difficult to snuggle and cuddle her close because of the position of her legs, which is by far the worst part. Oh yeah, did I mention that she hasn't slept more than 30 minutes at a time since the braces were put on her Monday morning? We're all just a wee bit exhausted around here. I know that in the whole scheme of things this really is not a big deal at all. Considering all things that could be wrong this is truly a minor issue with a simple fix. I know I should not be complaining but I am tired and feeling whiny so you all get to listen to me! =)

She reminds me a little bit of a marionette doll. Her little brace looks like strings that I could just tug on and make her dance. Oh well, even in her new little get up she's still absolutely adorable (at least to her mother). At least it's not like Forrest Gump's metal leg braces! That's what I kept picturing when they first told me she needed leg braces. Oh my crazy imagination.