Lucky

My kids have the best daddy!!!

Donny's Blessing

We gave Donovan a name and a blessing this week at church.

Kevin gives the most beautiful blessings. Josie's blessing was so eloquent and fitting. Donny's was no exception. He was so calm and happy during the blessing. Kevin said he just gazed up at him the whole time. Kevin's mom was able to fly out for the blessing and it was so nice to have her there. We really tried to get a family pic, but none turned out. We were all tired and Josie was feeling particularly squirmy. We got lots of Donny, though! Here he is in the whole get-up:

He hated the silly hat as you can see:

Such a little gentleman!

Is he not just the sweetest little guy? Oh, I love that face!!!

Josie in real life

I promised some Josie clips so you can see how ridiculously adorable she is. Not that you can't get that from the pictures, but you can't hear her sweet toddler voice that way! : )

It's interesting to see what she picks up on. I never taught her how to count but I count things all the time. One day, I noticed her counting and when I asked, she correctly counted to 5. Then, a week later she counted to five and a few random numbers past that. We haven't been able to record that though, cause when we ask her, she says stuff like this:

(side note: I have no idea where she got the counting with your fingers thing. I definitely didn't teach her that. I laughed when I saw her do it cause I have no idea how or where she saw someone count on their fingers. Also, I love that she just helps herself in the kitchen, haha! )

Here she is just being her normal Josie-in-the-car self:

Aaaaaaand one more!

And finally, one of Josie eating! Big suprise. By the way, the guitar stand behind her is her "microphone" that she sings into and carries around with her all the time. She also likes to hang clothes on it as you can see. I think Donny is about 2 weeks old here, so this was a few weeks ago.

The Big Sister

It's been a little while since I've updated about Josie! Here's a little bit about what she is like as a 23 month old big sister. I have been trying to post videos, but I can't get it to work right now, so I'll post those in a separate post. Until then......

Last month at her "18 month" appointment (reeeeally late, I know. I've been busy) she weighed about 26 pounds and was 30 something inches tall. Can't remember exactly, but I remember her saying it was like the 75th%. Oh, and as we suspected, her head is in like the 90-95th%, haha. Tall, skinny, and full of brains!

The biggest change has been that she has become a BIG talker!! It's impossible to even count how many words she knows at this point. She learns tons of new words each day and will repeat almost anything you teach her. She says lots of phrases and even simple sentences! She is always gabbing away and loves to sing and talk to herself. She loves to walk into the room and say "Hi!!! How are you doing?!" She is very good about saying "thank you" in every situation and says it every time I hand her something. She also loves saying "bless you" when people sneeze. She is always walking around the house or sitting in the car gabbing away! It's super cute! It's also really interesting and fun to finally know what's going on inside that big head of hers.

Lately her favorite thing to do is watch this Mormon Tabernacle Choir dvd we have. Weird, I know. I started putting it on before church and she was mesmerized! She can name all the instruments, claps at the end of each song, and loves to conduct along with my conducting baton. I guess it's in her blood! I try to limit movie time so sometimes when she asks I say "No, it's not time for a movie right now, it's --------time." So lately she has been coming up to me with the dvd saying "Music time? Yes?!? Pleeeeeese!" It's so cute I have a hard time saying no.

She loves to give hugs and kisses and is a big snuggler. She will come up to me and start hugging my legs and say "Hugs. Nice." She is very loving with Donny and I have to be careful about letting her get too close. She always wants to pick him up and has a hard time giving him love without almost smothering him.

She has started being a little more independent which means I hear "nope" a lot more now. It's funny cause in the beginning, she would say "o" like "no" without the "n." Then, she would say "no" but now she says "nope" and "yep." It's funny. Even when she's upset she'll say "NOPE, mommy!!" She is a really, really good girl and we pretty much never have problems with her. We have been reading this fabulous book about child development and child psychology that has given great tips on avoiding tantrums and conflict. It really works! We have been able to avoid most tantrums.

The only minor problem has been that she has been having a little separation anxiety with me lately. If I even leave the room, or if she can't see me, she gets scared and starts crying. She has never had that issue before and it just started happening about a week ago. I'm not sure if it's cause of the baby or just the age she's at. Maybe both. It doesn't annoy me or anything, it's just sad cause she will cry like she is terrified that I'm never coming back. I read that it's pretty common and will get better with time. It just means taking her to nursery at church has been challenging lately. Fortunately, I was just released from the Primary presidency.

Josie is still a really big eater. She is ALWAYS hungry! I can never predict what she will say when I ask her what she wants to eat. Last week she wanted spinach with balsamic dressing for breakfast. She will also often say "Cookies?" with a look of hope in her eyes.

This is typical Josie behavior. Eating spinach out of a measuring cup while standing on a stool. Classic.


It's really hard to get Josie to sit still for photos let alone look at the camera. I had to bribe her with cookies for these ones with Grandma.





At the park with Grandma.





Already getting chased by boys, lol.







Josie had her first pony ride at the Blueberry festival! She loved it! She was a lot more excited than she looks. She talked about it the rest of the day.




A typical Josie expression.

Josie loves to lay down on things. Grass, sidewalks, the kitchen floor, or in this case, a picnic table.


Josie is OBSESSED with any kind of ball. If we are in a toy store, she will immediately point out any ball in the room. Even at the coolest park, she will sit and watch kids play basketball with longing in her eyes. She treasures all her balls but her blue bouncy ball is her favorite.

Josie also loves to jump and dance. She is getting pretty good at jumping. Here she is mid-air:

Just a couple random shots of Josie silliness. This is her walking around with one of the stroller shades on her head.

Josie has not used a binkie since she was around 9 months old. I guess seeing Donny do it has made it cool again for her, haha!! She's only walked around with it a couple times cause she thinks it's funny.

Can't believe she's almost TWO!!

6 Weeks!

I feel really behind on my blog. I like to keep it up mostly so I can keep a good record. I have a terrible memory, so it's nice to look back and see details about things we did or info about the children. Anyway, little Donovan is 6 weeks old now! It's weird to think of him as a regular baby now and not really a newborn. At the same time, it seems like forever ago that I was pregnant and going into labor. I keep reminding myself (especially when I look in the mirror) that it hasn't even been 2 months! Kevin was on a business trip in China last week so my mom decided to come out and help me and finally meet Donny! It was great having her help.

So, at one month old, Donny weighed in at 10 lb. 6 oz and was almost 23 inches long. He is very healthy and doing well. Most of the time, he is content to just look around and calmly observe things. I'm sure Josie is plenty entertaining for him. He seems to be pretty easy going for now. He hates his car seat though, and has a problem coming out of sleep sometimes. He doesn't cry when he is tired and wanting to sleep. In fact, he falls asleep very easily just about anywhere, even in his crib! It's just coming out of it or being woken up that he hates. Because of this, he tends to be kinda fussy in the morning upon waking and slips in and out of sleep for a while until finally deciding which one he wants. Up until a couple nights ago, he had been sleeping in our bed mostly. I wanted to make sure I was getting enough sleep while I recovered and wanted to make sure night nursing was good and established before trying him in a crib. It started to seem though, that whenever I put him down and let him sleep alone, he slept better and longer. Josie always slept well wherever too and the transition from our bed to the crib, and then to her own room was very easy. So, the last 2 nights I decided to put him in the crib in our room when he was going to sleep (around 10?) and he slept a good solid 5 hours both times! He then eats an goes right back down. He usually wakes 2 times at night to eat. Not bad! The crib is next to our bed so we are still close by, but it was nice to have a little more room for myself to sleep. If it continues this way, he will probably just sleep in his crib all night and eventually we will move him into his own room (when I make one for him, lol). He is awake quite a bit during the day, but takes a nice looooooong nap at the same time as Josie. Awesome.

With both Josie and with Donny, I let them ease into their own schedule. I feed them when they are hungry, not on an hourly schedule. I am not a fan of hyperscheduling babies and just find it easier to let them do their newborn thing until it becomes apparent that there is some sort of routine starting. Not sure when this appeared with Josie, but it seems Donny has started to become a little more predictable with sleep. He at least goes to bed and awakens for the day at about the same time.

Josie has always had a healthy appetite. She ate constantly as a baby, but was very efficient at it so it was no big deal. Especially in the early weeks, I assume I will nurse pretty much hourly (or more!). I did with Donny for the first 3 weeks or so which established a substantial milk supply. I'm pretty sure I could feed a family of four now. Seriously though, I never understood why they say newborns (under 2 or 3 weeks) eat every 3-4 hours. Maybe it's just my kids, but I'm pretty sure mine would be starving by then! Plus, my milk supply would probably be lacking. By one month mine could go that long, but before then, it's like every hour. Now at 6 weeks, he usually goes about 2-3 hours in between but it's pretty variable.

Oh yeah, Donny gave us his first smile at about 5 or 5 1/2 weeks!! I was looking for it and was not disappointed. He now gives regular open mouth smiles showing us that adorable dimple!! Now I just need to catch it on camera. I love this time!

Seriously, I don't think he has stayed awake longer than 10 mins in this thing.

In Grandma's arms....

These pictures were all taken at the Blueberry Festival. More pictures from this in Josie's post.

Yes, that's a hair net she's holding. It's a long story.....

A little smile?......

He's getting so good at holding his head up!