there is sunshine...

oh, but my day didn't start out that way! it began with a 30 minute phone conversation with our realtor in utah. she didn't seem real positive about our home, which was COMPLETE opposite of her approach before we actually hired her. anyway, the conversation made me sick to my stomach because i worry so much and just when i think things are starting to pan out with this investment, it doesn't last long. then, i took clara to the dr. to find out she only weighs 14 pounds and is in the 14th percentile for her age. GEEEZ! you'd think i'm starving the poor thing. my dr. says it is not reason to be alarmed, we just need to monitor her weight gain so i have to take her in every week to have her weighed. since she needs to gain, that means i have to feed her more. she goes to bed around 8, wakes up around 7ish, so that means i'll have to feed her every 2 1/2 hours or so to get six feedings in. then, after we come back from vacation, i'll start her on cereal so that should help. to top the appointment off, she had to get her shots. she's actually pretty good, but it's still sad to watch her little face turn from a worried-concerned look to a pained look just moments after the shots are given. i'm just glad i don't have to give them to her.

when we got home, i just wanted to cry, so i opened the curtains to let a little SUNSHINE in and sang, THERE IS SUNSHINE IN MY SOUL TODAY... it made me feel a wee bit better. then i sewed two tag blankets from my twin nieces. i don't sew much and when i do, it's nothing great, but i do have to say, i am REALLY proud of these blankets. they turned out SO cute. i'll post pics later, for now, i have to get to work and i'm too lazy to go get my camera in the kitchen. plus, i should be cleaning my house for jen, not blogging. but it's like therapy... when i used to keep a journal, i expressed so many of my feelings that it became therapeutic and now it's blogging. :)

jerk of the day

for any of you that know me, you know i am a firm believer that horns are in cars to be HONKED. :) sometimes it is a "you idiot!" honk, other times it's a "wake up!" honk and sometimes it's just an "are you paying attention?" friendly honk because even i occasionally don't pay attention when i should. today, i was driving to ribbons and lace (i'm pretty sure that store is the COOLEST) and i was turning left onto lindsay rd. and this person in front of me was yielding to oncoming traffic... and then... there was no oncoming traffic and they still didn't turn, so of course i give the, "are you paying attention?" honk. at least 20-30 seconds went by (a long time when waiting to turn left) and they turned. of course, that 20-30 seconds threw my whole schedule off so i zoomed passed her and thought wouldn't that be great if she was going to the same place as me. as my fabulous luck would have it, she turned in right after me. and sure enough, walks past my car as i was getting clara out, gives a little smile and goes into ribbons and lace. now, any fellow ribbons and lace fans, you know that store is NOT big, so i can't exactly hide. i decided to let down my pride and apologize to her and let her know it was just a "hello, are you paying attention" honk and nothing rude (after all, why would they put horns in cars if they weren't supposed to be used?). so yeah for me, everything is good, right? well, it gets worse. the girl, who, by the way, happnes to be this little young sweet girl that probably has never done anything remotely rude, procedes to tell me, the cashier and another girl that was in the store that we both knew how last week she got in an accident when she was turning left and so now she is paranoid to turn left. she was trying to decide if she had enough time or not when i honked. wow, did i feel great! lessons learned: 1.don't judge, not even when driving. we never know why people do what they do or what their situation. as this girl's were, their actions could be completely justified. 2. after you honk at someone keep going if you think they might be turning into the same place as you. 3. jerk of the day: me. :)

new computer... no naps... messy house... house for sale

so i did it, bought a new laptop. well, jason bought it because i got a stress headache everytime i thought about having to make a decision involving so much money. what does that mean for all of you? definitely more blogging from me. ha! just what you are all looking forward to. so here are a few pics of the new computer. my last one was a gateway and i'm not sure i am ready for a change to dell. i guess i better make up my mind real fast though! the keyboard feels VERY nice, not like my cheap dell i had for work. we'll see if it is up to my standards.

also, clara is real fussy and won't take her naps. i'm guessing teeth but she has been SO high maintenance. maybe it's because the only time we left the house yesterday was to walk and get the mail, but who knows. when i lay her down to wrap her for her naps, she instantly starts screaming. she has been asleep for less than 30 minutes and i hear her talking to herself... and now screaming and her pacifier isn't appealing to her. i don't know what to do because i will go crazy if she doesn't take her naps. last night, she cried herself to sleep (don't worry, it took less than 8 minutes and was more of an intermittant whine than a cry). anyway, she's been sleeping until 7, so that is good. on father's day she slept until 8, so that was a nice treat. but if any of you have suggestions on her napping routine, let me know. oh, yesterday, it was so bad i thought i'd rock her to sleep. she pretended to be asleep after like 15 minutes of rocking and my singing and when i laid her in her bed, it was the instant high-pitched wail as if i was the meanest mom ever. hopefully it's a phase... otherwise i might need some help. she just screams all of the time and pushes her pacifier out with her tongue. hmmmm, suggestions?

so my friend jen, her husband curt and baby cache are coming to stay with us this weekend, which means i've been trying to tidy up my house. the only problem is i am ocd about things and if i can't do it perfectly, i'd rather not do it at all. this means i like to deep clean and organize, however, by the time i have pulled everything out of a drawer or cupboard, i'm too exhausted (aka lazy) to put everything away. so my house looks like an even bigger mess than it did a few days ago before i began "tidying" up.

one last thing. we are building a BEAUTIFUL spec home in utah. here's a picture. it should be ready to move in in less than a month, so if any of you know of anyone that needs a fabulous home in utah, let me know. seriously, if i wanted to live in utah, i would buy it in a heartbeat. it is huge, on a 1/3 acre and has beautiful mountain views from the breakfast nook window. i have never seen it so that is what i have heard and gathered from pictures. here's a picture from the county's website. hopefully i can get some pictures when it's done before it's sold. oh yeah, it's also in a REALLY nice community that has very restrictive covenants, so the subdivision will stay nice and upscale. blogs have helped people start businesses... why can't mine help me sell our house? :)

post bath

two of my obsessions are: blogging and taking pictures of my sweet baby. combine those and you get me, the blogaholic. so clara loves taking baths and it is SO cute to watch her hold still and then go crazy kicking in the water. when i take her out, we say goodbye to her toys, bye to the wash rag and then i put her in the towel and she ALWAYS looks over to watch me pour the bath water out and say bye to the bath water. it's funny that she already can remember things like that. then, when i put her in her crib in her towel, she gets super hyper. it's great and just makes me want to grab the camera every time. so i did and took some pictures of her fuzzy after-bath hair. i also got a video of her thrashing her little legs around and doing her new trick: holding her tongue slightly after her mouth and blowing out making bubbles in her slobber and spraying them, ya know, like a thllllllllll sound, but juicy. she'll do it back and forth with me every now and then. oh, and have i mentioned that i think she is so cute and oh so SWEET! one of these nights... i'm going to sneak into her room and get her out of her crib and just hold her. and now i finally understand motherly love. it can't be explained but it's unlike any other. eeeeeeesh! i want to squeeze my sweet baby!! :)

i love shopping

i don't know why, but every day i get older, i love shopping that much more. the funny part is, now that i'm not working full-time and jason has cut back to working part-time as he finishes up school, we are making less than we ever have since we've been married. so, this is an odd time for me to develop my more-than-normal obsession with shopping. when i go, i have every intention of buying great clothes and shoes for myself and always end up with nothing for me and stuff for clara that she certainly doesn't 'need'. yesterday, i went and met angela and my friend karen for a little shopping adventure. everywhere is having GREAT sales, especially all the kids' stores (the children's place, baby gap, gymboree, nordstrom). so clara got more clothes and i got nothing. it is just much more enjoyable to buy her cute little clothes. and let me just say, nordstrom has the greatest mother's lounge (i discovered this in san diego). so no more having the mean lady in jc penny tell me i can't nurse in an empty dressing room, i have to use the nasty bathroom.


oh, and a couple of months ago, jason showed me the soles of his dress shoes and i was a bit embarassed. there were huge CHUNKS out of them. so he's been wearing his docs from his mission. hmmm... so i bought him some nice shoes thanks to nordstrom having their half-yearly. hooray! i love sales. the only bad part about shopping is clara is in her car seat/stroller for way too long. i had to go do payroll yesterday so she was in her carseat for the beginning half of the day before we even went shopping. sometimes i feel like i neglect her... but maybe that's why i have SO many pictures of her in her car seat. or maybe that's because when she's in her car seat it's much easier to get her to look at the camera.

cutest baby ever

i'm pretty sure, until i have another baby, clara is the cutest baby ever. and when i do have another baby, there is sure to be a tie ;). i knew i would take a lot of pictures, but i didn't know i'd take this many. every day i get clara ready for the day and i think, she is so cute, i better take a picture. i don't always do it, otherwise we'd need more than a 500gb hard drive, but i do take a lot. she has also gotten very good at smiling for the camera. at first, she was good at smiling. then, it didn't take long for her to start to squint and blink real fast when i pulled out the camera because my red eye light is very bright. lately she hasn't been blinking as much and her initial reaction is typically a smile. she also loves to grab the bottom of her dresses to suck on them and lift/grab her feet, which is evident in some of these pictures. lately, she has been sucking on her bottom lip. i really think she's about to sprout her first tooth soon because she's always rubbing her gums and chewing on things. last weekend she started opening her mouth really big when i go to stick her pacifier in so she can gnaw on the thicker, harder rubber outside of the pacifier. but we will see... back to pictures: taking pictures makes me want a better camera though so i can blow some pictures up for the wall. we've got to hang some of her up before we have another one! just ask my mom about how good i am at that. angela got married almost three years after us and it was after that that i got my mom a wedding picture for her wall. wooooops!

play date

my friend trevor has this week off of work so him, beka and her twins came over for a play date. it was fun. we just had lunch and then visited.

trevor had fun playing with the kids. clara loves drinking water from cups and water bottles so every time i have one or the other, she tries to get it. most of the time i give in because it is so entertaining to watch her reactions.i'm pretty sure being a stay-at-home mom is the greatest thing ever. words can't really describe how much more i love life now then i did when i was working. don't get me wrong, i enjoyed having a career, but now i just have LOADS of free time to do things that are so enjoyable. when i was working i felt like every second i spent doing something i enjoyed was a second wasted. i felt like i only had time to work, eat, sleep and housework on the weekends. if i wasn't doing one of these things, i was wasting time and it would cut into my sleep. if i was up late doing something fun, i was stressing because i had to wake up early. if i had a 3-day weekend, i didn't want to go to bed monday night because i didn't want it to end. if i didn't get something done saturday, i'd stress that i wouldn't find time to get it done until the next weekend. if i was on vacation, i usually spent the last few days dreading going back to work. i love being able to do things with friends and family in the middle of the day or stay up late and not have to worry about being somewhere bright and early. i also don't miss sitting in traffic for two hours a day and i love being able to leave town pretty much whenever i please. my part-time at-home jobs give me enough restriction to make sure i have some structure in my life. i just love playing with clara and if i don't get something done, oh well, there is tomorrow and it is okay because i spend my time just being a mom. i feel like i have been on vacation for the last six months and still think, man, i don't want to go to work monday... and what an exhilarating feeling it is when i realize that i DON'T have to go to work monday! i think going to school and working crazy hours has made me appreciate staying home even more. when i was in california i told nikki's mom i enjoy this stage of my life so much and i don't think it could get better and she said she felt that way about every stage of her life... if that is the case, i have a lot to look forward to! :)

remembering

the other night while i was feeding clara, i noticed how large her head is getting. i know a lot of people say they don't remember when their babies were newborns but i think i will always remember how clara's tiny little head used to fit perfectly into my cupped hand. her itty bitty legs were so skinny and had very little fat on them. i remember when she would scrunch into a little ball when i had her on my shoulder and would just sleep. i remember when she looked so tiny in her crib and now she's almost as long as the crib is wide! she is getting so big, but still a baby. it makes me sad to see her grow up, but i guess that is life, right? plus, her personality becomes more entertaining as she gets older and it is very gratifying to see her make 'advances'. she has got rolling to a science and now moves in circles on her belly. a few weeks ago, she discovered that she has hair and that she likes the way it feels in her fingers so she will place her hand by her head and open and shut it.and yesterday i gave her "big people food" for the first time: a celery stick to suck on. woah! i'm living on the edge!

my potato bug

last night before going to bed i went into check on clara (habits of a paranoid mom). i didn't want to turn on the light so i went to just listen to her breath and she looked really short. i got closer and noticed she had rolled onto her tummy and pulled her legs up underneath her like a little potato bug. she has never rolled over in the night; she normally waits until the morning when she wakes up. anyway, it was just so cute so i took a picture. don't worry, it didn't wake her up. i did want to just scoop her out of the crib and hold her... that is a temptation i often resist. eeeesh! she is so sweet! :)

san diego II

on friday clara and i went to san diego so here is the play-by-play of our vacation. of course it will include plenty of pictures.

day 1: friday, june 1st
we left a little before lunch time and clara wasn't super happy on the trip over. i think since she's started to roll all over the place she doesn't appreciate being confined to her carseat. i try to explain to her that if i could, i would take her out, but i don't think she quite understands. we made pretty good time getting there. this is her 2nd san diego trip and i'm sure there are plenty more ahead. this time we stayed with nikki, one of my best friends from when i lived there. we've been friends since the summer before 3rd grade, so we were 8 years old. i love her and love the fact that we both have little girls. when i first got there, we set clara and brooklynn, nikki's little girl, on the floor. we laughed because all they did was stare at each other and then clara tried to poke her eyes out so we had to monitor their play time. after we visited a bit, had dinner and cleaned up clara's best ever blow out, we went to my friend saleah's parent's house. saleah is my other best friend from san diego and now that she lives in idaho, i have seen her once since she got married. so when i heard she'd be in town, that was my main motive in coming to san diego by myself for the weekend. we had a nice little visit with her, but had to get our kids in bed so back to nikki's we went. i decided i'd stay until tuesday instead of monday.

day 2: saturday, june 2nd
today while i was trying to get ready clara decided she'd start screaming. braun had brooklynn and said, i can handle them both, you just get ready. before i got ready, i had to get a picture. i'd say clara looks a wee bit concerned about what is happening, but hey, i was able to get ready!
today we had lunch and then went shopping. we ate at panera, only my second time there. the first was in kansas city and i'm pretty sure they need one here in arizona. it is excellent food. i learned that nordstrom has a wonderful mother's lounge to feed the babies in. now i need to find out if our nordstroms here have one. we found the cutest little sunglasses for our girls. when i first put them on clara, she tried to take them off but after that, she just let me leave them on and i took picture after picture. brooklynn was not into the glasses, but still looked cute in them.while i was in gap, clara decided to kick her pacifier out of her stroller without me knowing it. she was super fussy, so when i went to give it to her and couldn't find it, i got pretty nervous. her pacifiers are really bouncy so on the floor i got looking under the fixtures. luckily i found it pretty quick. just as we were leaving the mall, both of the babies fell asleep. it is exhausting being a baby, i'm sure of it. after that we went to visit with saleah again. when we got to her house, i went to put some chocolate i bought at see's in my diaper bag and nikki said, "you can tell you are from az b/c you think you can't leave chocolate in the car." i asked, "it won't melt in the car?" nikki told me no so i put it in her console next to her's. when we came out, hmmm, it had melted. but that's not the funny part... after saleah's house, we went to swing by nikki's parent's. we passed them on the road so we both stopped to visit across the road. i told nikki's parents that nikki learned that even though we don't live in arizona, chocolate will still melt if left in a car. as nikki went to laugh, she hit her forehead on her steering wheel. HA! it was really funny and i'm pretty sure it was sore the next day. okay, at saleh's we got some cute pictures of our three little girls together. all three of our girls were born within 6 months. brooklynn was born in september, clara in december and lindynn in march. during our little photo shoot we realized clara is a bit of a bully (an awfully cute one though). first she started out laying on poor little lindynn. then she leaned over and was grabbing brooklynn's clothes, her mouth, you name it. of course she was smiling all the while.
day 3: sunday, june 3rd today was a most typical sunday: church and relaxing. clara's new thing is screeching like a raptor. it is very ear-piercing and sudden and can be pretty entertaining, unless of course it is during sacrament meeting. so today, she was sure to let a few of her screeches out at less-than-the-best times. it is funny because nikki's bishop is my good friend karen's brother. we worked together at cbiz. what a small world (we knew this, but it was fun to finally meet him).

day 4: monday, june 4th
today we went to the beach and had a great time. nikki had this little baby hut thing that we decided to put the girls in so they wouldn't get in the sand and they wouldn't get burned. it worked for about 2 seconds. clara rolled over smashing her face into the side and brooklynn just couldn't figure out what was going on. later nikki decided it would be funny if we got in the tent. i went first, she took some pictures, then she decided that was funny enough and she didn't need to make a fool of herself like i had. it was a little chilly so we didn't stay long, but clara loved it nonetheless. i put her feet in the freezing water and she loved it. then i put her feet on the wet sand and she dug them straight down and then was kicking and loving every second. when i laid her on the towel, she pulled the towel up to her and reached out and when she touched the hand with her sand, she loved feeling it. it was funny.
after the beach and getting showered, i went and met emily and her kids, alexis and justin, at outback. it was fun seeing them, especially since i was able to see them just a few months ago. it's a shame that all my family can't live on the same street. i love my family and don't see my sisters that live out of state enough. all three of them wanted to hold clara so i'm glad clara's cousins and aunts love her!
when i was done with dinner i headed back to nikki's parents where we indulged in a chocolate fountain evening. braun, nikki's husband, is working for sephra. they make chocolate fountains and loan them to employees. i love chocolate fountains and just sat around it and ate for hours. later saleah came over and we got a really cute picture of the three of us but saleah has threatened me if i post it on here. she didn't have make up on, but she still looks beautiful so i'm not sure what she's worried about. maybe i should just put it on here because who knows if she will ever even see this! :) it was really fun because the three of us had a nice little chat and it felt like the good ole' days. we also decided we are going to go to new york next summer without our kids. hopefully it will actually happen and i will get over the guilt i am already feeling of leaving my kid.
we didn't get home until late and then nikki and i stayed up even later chatting until around 230am. let me tell you, that is about the smartest thing you can do when your baby wakes up at 630am. it was fun to talk and we both reminisced about the labor and births of our daughters. i wish i could package those feelings up somehow so i never forget because i have not been able to find words adequate to describe any of it. i also thought a lot about how much i love clara. having a kid to me brought a whole new dimension of the meaning of love in my life. i just can't imagine life without her and feel like i can't waste a minute of enjoying her sweet spirit. it made me want to go get her out of bed and just hold her. time just flies by and i never want to get to a point and feel like i should have held her more when she was small. nikki convinced me to stay another day too... if only we lived closer.


day 5: tuesday, june 5th
we went to a place called shinoda's today. it is like a wholesale warehouse for florists. it was neat. i got lots of ribbon and flowers to make large obnoxious headbands for clara. i've also thought about selling them because they are so freaking cute. anyone that wants to buy one, let me know. they are great gifts and hard to find. after that we went to costco, michael's, wal mart, and joann's. sheesh! that's a lot of shopping with two babies. i started feeling bad that clara had been in her seat for so long and she's be in there all day coming home, so i carried her around in the last three stores, that was fun. something happened in wal mart that had nikki and me laughing our heads off and i realized, that's when you know you have a good friend: when you can have such a fun time simply by going into a wal mart. anyway, it was a fun day. we came home and did dinner, put our kiddos to sleep, i packed a bit and then we made some headbands.

day 6: wednesday, june 6th
parting is such sweet sorrow. i had such a great time seeing my friends and family but it was time to go home. i very much appreciated her and braun's hospitality. nikki said i could stay as long as i wanted but the truth is, we were running out of clothes. nikki said she had a washing machine, but i don't know if i can believe that. :) no, it was time to go home like it or not. there will be plenty more trips and i need to find a way to convince nikki to come out here. it is not that bad of a drive. we'll see if it happens. we stopped in yuma for gas and i decided i had to use the restroom. well, what do you do with a 5 month old when you are traveling alone and you need to use the restroom? you hold her in one hand and do everything else with the other, of course! it's not easy and it takes about twice as long, but at least i didn't have to set her or anything she owned anywhere in a public restroom. up until yuma, clara was being a pretty big turkey and screaming a lot. but i think i realized she likes a blanket. i gave her a blanket and she slept almost the entire three hours after yuma. so we made it home safe and i already miss san diego. i just love the weather.

so there you have, my weekend review. :)