Goodbye January!

If I'm honest, I'm ready for February to come. Or at least I think I am. Lots of fun things happen in February. There's my half birthday and Isla's half birthday and Emma's half birthday should be in there too though she technically doesn't have a half birthday since there is no February 30th. How did I let that happen?! Oh and then of course there's Valentine's Day.

January has been a bit bumpy this year. It started with illness for all of us girls, sleep deprivation, a near loss of my milk supply, poor growth and bottle rejection for Emma, a second bout of illness for the girls, sleep training. And then some bad news. It's been stressful and I've been emotional. But I've also been growing in my faith and for that I am grateful. I'm gaining perspective. So many of these challenges are temporary and so I'm learning to focus on the eternal.

I'm really looking forward to flipping my calendar page tomorrow and starting a new month. There are lots of things in February that I'm really nervous about but also so many occasions to celebrate. I for one just adore holidays and of course Valentine's Day is no exception. I mean really, what girl doesn't love a little extra affection from her man if she's being completely honest? Isla's already asking "What is a Valentine?" and I'm excited to show her! Happy February!

Emma: 22 Weeks

Emma is now officially 5 months old!

This week has gone much better than some of the weeks prior. We seem to be making headway on the whole sleep training ordeal for which I am oh so grateful. It is not easy to let your baby cry but after the last few weeks, I am 100% confident that sleep is a learned behavior and that sleeping and bedtimes must be taught. We've gone from having a baby who wouldn't go to bed before 11 PM (and who ate at 5 PM, 7 PM, 9 PM, 11 PM etc) to having a baby who eats for the last time ~6:30 PM and then is able to make it until early morning before needing to feed again. Last night, she went from 7:15 PM to 8 AM without eating!!! Granted, that could have been a fluke, but it's major progress. She still lets out a few squawks throughout the evening after we put her down but is no longer crying for long stretches before falling asleep. She usually wakes 1-2 times a night but I'm not feeding her if it's before 4 AM. The last couple nights a binky plug is all she's needed. Tonight I got brave enough to put her down back in her room with Isla (because I have company coming this weekend who will need the guest room!) I am so hoping we don't undo our progress.

Emma absolutely adores her sister. Every time Isla talks, it gets her attention, even if someone else is talking at the same time. Isla has a knack for making her giggle and you can just tell the two love each other.

Emma loves grabbing my hair and swatting my face while she nurses. Now I remember why I wanted short hair after having Isla!

She loves being held up above my head like an airplane and is starting to really enjoy peekaboo. Apparently she is also rather intrigued by her tongue.

DIY

I have a rather long list of projects I'm hoping to tackle. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if I might be pregnant and experiencing some form of the nesting phase. Maybe there is such thing as I-have-a-2-year-old-and-a-5-month-old-and-I-need-to-do-something-other-than-change-diapers-and-feed-with-these-hands-of-mine sort of nesting. I'm not quite sure where I expect to find the time to implement this mental list of projects since I can't seem to get the girls to sleep at the same time but who cares about that detail! :) I just need to create!

Sooooooo, I placed an order yesterday for this fabric:

Our dining chairs have white cushions (seriously, who buys dining chair with white cushions and then proceeds to have kids???) Or at least they used to be white. Now I think each and every one of them has at least one giant stain in a variety of colors. So, I am going to recover them with this stain resistant fabric. I ordered a swatch of it first so I could try it out. When I poured water on it, the liquid beaded into droplets and was not absorbed. I even squirted some bright orange sriracha sauce on it and it wiped right off. Anyway, if you haven't already put two and two together, I'm going to attempt to recover all 8 of our chairs.

While I was at it, I also decided to order a yard of each of these fabrics to recover some of our living room pillows. Never thought I'd say this, but I feel the need for CHANGE!!!

Three of our dining chairs sit at the bar in the living room so I'm hoping the pillows will help tie together the green on the chairs with our bright red accent wall. It could end up looking like Christmas all year round, but hopefully not.

Then I've been scouring all the Value Villages in the area for a large frame. We have a huge vase full of wine corks we've been saving and I want to make my own fashionable cork board to hang near the entryway. I'm hoping this will be a great place to post the Christmas pictures you all sent! So far my frame hunt has left me empty handed but I'm sure I'll find one I like somewhere.

In my Value Village treasure hunting, I did come across these silver gems which I'd been in the market for since Christmas. After taking down my garlands, I realized our mantle was a bit barren. We almost spent $60 on some silver pillar candle holders at Ikea but I'm glad we didn't because I scored these for 4 bucks!

Oh and now I'm in the market for another couple yards of fabric to make a 2nd crib sheet for Emma's bed. One is definitely not enough! I'm having a hard time finding anything that doesn't look too busy with the fabric I chose for her crib skirt.

The peaks of sunshine we've been having reminded me that my garden planters are all disintegrating on the patio and that it's time for something new. I'd love to have one BIG one made that I can actually fit a large variety of produce in. So, of course dreaming up a garden planter reminded me that I need to pick out my vegetable seeds for the spring.....

Gosh, there's a LOT more I'm hoping to do but this is sounding like a lot already. One thing at a time. Hopefully I will have some pictures of finished projects to post soon!

Emma: 21 Weeks

Emma finally rolled over a couple more times for Graham to see on Jan 25th. He was beginning to think I'd made up that milestone. She frequently rolls to her side now to grab toys and can spin herself and scoot up with her feet. She seems to really enjoy rubbing her feet together and is almost always missing at least one sock.

We began our own version of sleep training this week. I just couldn't take the 15 hour days anymore and determined it was time to get her to fall asleep and stay asleep at a set time in the evenings. At first I tried putting her down after Isla around 7:30 or 8 PM but she was beginning to melt down closer to 6:30 so I bumped it up. I'm trying to give her a bottle at 6:30 PM and have her in bed by 7. If I can get my act together, I might even try bottle at 6 and bed at 6:30 but it is proving rather challenging doing all that right at the dinner hour. I can now see why my mom used to feed us at 5:30 PM!



Anyway, she was going down fine at first but then would wake up again anywhere from 15 minute to 2 hours later. We started by letting her cry for 5 minutes and then we'd calm her and then 10 minutes etc but she only got more and more worked up. I re-read my Healthy Sleep Habits book and finally we decided just to let her cry. I know there are a multitude of opinions on this but I believe whole heartedly that she needs to learn to fall asleep and fall back to sleep on her own. So, with Graham's support, I bit the bullet and decided we wouldn't go in there if she started to cry (ok, if we're honest, maybe he decided that one). The first time we tried it, she cried for 1 hour. And then the 2nd night it's like she knew it was coming and so decided not to to go to bed at 7 and cried for a half hour. Then she woke again at her usual 9:30/10 PM mark and we repeated the process. Of course I spent a lot of time crying too. Last night, after 8 or so nights of this, she finally went down without crying and didn't wake up again until 3 AM. Success! I'm feeling better about bedtime but now we need to decide what to do about the middle of the night awakenings and then conquer her cat naps during the day. 

Emma is extremely wiggly. She doesn't really sit on your lap anymore but rather tries to catapult herself out of your arms and onto the floor. We've had a couple close calls. She really loves is when I strip her down just to a diaper-all her limbs go crazy.



She is losing her hair by the bunches now, especially after I bathe her. You'd think we had a cat by the look of her sheet and swaddle. Makes me so sad. I know it will grow back, I just loved the way it was.

I think Emma is ready for solids. It's just that I'm not ready yet. She throws herself toward my dinner plate in the evenings and gets really frustrated while we're eating. I'll probably start in the next couple weeks but I'm dragging my feet as I've never been one to believe in starting before 6 months because it's just easier to wait. She obviously has a mind of her own though. Watch.

Isla: 2 Years, 5 months

Isla is at such a fun age! Maybe all kids are fun at this age but I think she is absolutely hilarious. She comes up with the most random ways to entertain herself which 1) makes me feel boring that I didn't think of the activity myself and 2) makes me thankful she is capable of being creative. Take for instance path building. She likes to collect all the pillows from the living room and lay them out across the floor to build a "path." She also likes to utilize a set of hardcover books on our shelf for the same purpose. Then she asks "Mom go on the path with me?"

Isla can officially spell her name! I just randomly caught her saying "I-S-L-A" one day. I'm trying to teach her to write it now. She asks me to do it all the time so hopefully she will figure it out before long.

I see little bits (ok maybe a lot of bits) of my personality in her. Each of the place settings in her toy dishes set is a different color and the other day I tried to give her a pink fork to go with her white plate. I was immediately corrected and told she would be needing the white fork with the white plate. I've intentionally tried to be very lax about this sort of thing in my play with her as OCD tendencies are not something I want to pass on to her. But apparently it runs in her blood. :)

For whatever reason, the staircase has turned into the bedroom for all her dolls and stuffed animals. She loves to put them down for their naps on the steps and always makes sure to remind me "Mom, be quiet. Ducky is sleeping."

Speaking of Ducky, Isla is coming up with her own little catch phrases. Her latest is to add a "y" to the end of a word and then repeat it again without the "y." Like her ducky is now "Ducky Ducks" and her soap has become "Soapy Soap." I feel like she's done it to a few other words too I just can't recall what they are at present. It makes me laugh.

We have added this wonderful little question to our "most-commonly-used-sentences-in-the-Crozier-household" and it has almost changed our lives from a discipline standpoint. Isla continues to test and test and test. But now when she is testing and bordering on disobeying, we ask her "Isla, are you going to choose to obey or disobey?" It really gets her attention and she stops whatever she is doing and usually responds eagerly "Obey!" and does whatever we ask. Only once did she tell me "Disobey!" and I don't think she was pleased with the consequences so that was the end of that. Yesterday over breakfast she told me out of nowhere "God wants me to obey." (Yes, apparently she is listening!) Then she proceeded to ask me "Where's God?" and so began a popular conversation in our house... She knows "He's in our hearts!" and yesterday she told me He was in Emma's heart too. :)

Isla adores her little sister and I have been particularly touched by how the two are engaging with one another this past month. Isla loves to lay on top of Emma and repeat "We don't share germs!" over and over in her face. (Can you tell she's growing up in a house with two medical professionals as parents?) They both proceed to giggle and laugh and so the cycle repeats. I hate to admit it but my two year old has become a mighty fine little babysitter during dinner prep and clean up time. I'll ask Isla to go give Emma her binky or go make Emma laugh and she will!

I love how Isla says certain words. For whatever reason she has never been able to say "picture." Instead it comes out "pick-shook" and so I had to capture it on video because someday she'll say it right and I'll be sad. She did finally master the word "pool" but it takes a lot of concentration first for her to get it right!

The other day I was changing her diaper and out of no where she told me "Some day when I am bigger and bigger, a boy gonna give me a ring for my finger!" She also told me that she'd like a big girl watch so she can wear it with her running shoes and run for exercise.

She joined me in doing my Jillian Michael's workout DVD a couple times last week while we were snowed in. She used Emma's stacking rings as weights and it was pretty adorable. I'd just been using my 3 pound weights to break myself back in but of course Isla had to ask why I wasn't using the 7 pounders. I told her that I couldn't lift those ones yet so she went the rest of the day repeating that "When mommy is older and older, she'll be able to lift the big green weights." Yes Isla, someday when I'm older.

Isla seems a bit more interested in using the potty over the past couple weeks (I think mostly because it prolongs bedtime). But, we've had two successes in four days so that give me hope. I'm still not pushing it as I know she'll let me know when she's ready.

One of Isla's very favorite words right now is "actually." She often tells me things like "Actually I'd like pasta Mommy" or "My dolly needs a clean diaper actually."

I think we conquered our early morning waking problem where Isla would start wailing at 5 AM for us to come fix her blanket....We told her she was old enough now to fix her own blanket and sure enough, after a few demonstration where we showed her how, she can do it all by herself. Ahhh, the magic of empowering...

As for other favorites, she is loving Spot the dog books, gluing all sorts of "crafts" with her glue stick, having her Daddy tell her made up stories and pretending the coffee table is a slide at the park (ummmm?) She's such a sweetheart and I'm grateful for her every day!

Crozier Christmas 2011, finally

This post will be a continuation of this post I wrote about Christmas #1 a couple weeks back. After the Christmas Eve service, we headed over to the senior Croziers where we enjoyed a dinner of cheese fondue with chocolate fondue for dessert. We opted to sleep over to make for a less rushed Christmas morn.  

We started with stockings...

 Yes, I am officially that mom who buys her kids matching Christmas pajamas. 

 Grandma Crozier served up a delicious breakfast of cinnamon rolls and eggs and each place setting was complete with a cute wooden ornament. 

 Don't ask me why, but Graham wore these glasses most of the morning...

Auntie Tash and Uncle John! (Of course I would have lighting issues when taking a picture of the professional photographer but I had to document you were there John!) 

Had to post a shot that captures the wildest tree ever (17 feet and they ordered a 12 footer...) 

 Graham and my gift to Isla. She LOVED it and I just loved her reaction. "A new little baby doll for me Mommy!" Nice work Graham--you know your daughter well.

I somehow managed not to get a solo picture of Scott (sorry Scott!) but here you can see him in the background between the stair rails. It's the best I could do!

 Grandpa Crozier and the little Cherub 

 After a soup lunch with just the immediate family, half of us retired to attempt a nap before the big party started. The evening closed with a ginormous gathering of the Davies clan that was quite exciting. Poor Emma was really not feeling well and we were all exhausted from our trip to Mexico so we bid our goodbyes around 7 and took our little sickies home to bed. Twas a Merry Christmas despite being ill!

Starbucks or bust!

Today is a snow day and Seattle is totally. freaking. out.  It cracks me up how unraveled the whole city becomes when snow hits but I gotta admit, the quiet streets and slowed lifestyle is nice every once in a while. This morning we "braved" the weather and plowed (yes, turns out the BOB Duallie doubles as a plow--who knew!?) our way to Starbucks in hopes of finding coffee. Not only were they open, but they were SLAMMED. Apparently none of us have anything better to do that go out to coffee when the snow hits! My dear husband has already made public a comment I made to the Facebook world: "Only people who are saving lives should go to work in the snow...and those who serve coffee." Can I get an AMEN!? 

 I don't own snow boots. Don't judge!

 Graham decided I needed a gargantuan mug-o-jo. I was totally embarrassed by the large size. Enough for tomorrow too!  

 Yeah, it was huge.

 Now Graham has left for work (he's saving lives of course) and us girls are hunkering down for a cozy afternoon at home. Happy snow day, Seattle!