Feeling special

So I was really weird. After seeing Laura's post and seeing her cute crib, I decided that would be the one new thing for this baby. For Alona of course everything was new she was our first. With Abbi we went out and got a new diaper bag, and many new different things that we hadn't had before. I wanted the second pregnancy & baby to feel special too just like I do with the third. So we really don't "need" a new crib. I even tell Paul this, he told me it would look nice. We browsed the online store at rc willey since we would be able to make payments and not have something to pay right up front, and this is the one we both agree on! It will go right along with the color of our other furniture in our room. :)By the way our ultrasound is a week from Friday, Paul says that he wants to find out, I am still indecisive. He really wants it to be a boy! ANd Alona is convinced that she is having a baby brother.

Fruits of labor

Alona can make her own lunch! After months of attempting to show her how to make a sandwich and months of her frustrations and "I can't do it". She made her first one, all by herself! Not a masterpiece by any means, but it was her masterpiece, her own accomplishment. Definetly fun to watch her grow and be able to do things by herself. It scares me at times thinking of all of the things that she will have to learn to do in such a short amount of time. Reading, writing and all of the other things. Its a little scary that it is me that has to teach her and help her along in these things. But its not all me, I have a smart little girl even though she may be a bit defiant at times.

Monday Night--Family Night

Tonight was the first night in a long time that we actually had family night on monday instead of Sunday night. Paul is usually gone to school on Monday nights so we cram in everything on sunday. Family night usually is more work for us as the parents than anything else. Alona really doesn't like to listen much, she likes things that are hands on so boring old lessons that I sometimes revert to don't work very well. Last week we talked about God's promises that we know that he has made and kept and then colored little booklets with what we talked about. Abbi didn't really want to color much, so Paul had fun with that. Alona enjoyed it and she is getting really good at coloring in the lines although she does choose some strange colors for things....blue hair, red/pink hands on people, its cute!

Tonight we went to the Salt Lake Temple after singing "I love to see the Temple" to show the girls where we would be going and what the temple looked like. We sand songs on the car ride there of course Alona's first pick was twinkle twinkle and then "the one about Nephi mom!" so we sand that one and Many other church songs and nursery rhymes.

Alona asked many questions..one about the doors, I explained to her that they don't use them anymore. And of course she says "Why" I told her that it would be too noisy(take away from the spirit) so people enter from the building with all of the glass that was in front of us. She asked who built the temple, "the pioneers". We commented on the flowers and she says yep they're there cause its summertime. Paul picked her up and she got to see/touch the "circles" as she called them. She wanted to touch all of the rest of them as well.

Abbi was really cute she wanted "OFF" as she says lately whenever she wants her seatbelt off to get up. Then she enjoyed climbing the stairs to the door to the temple. This was also the first time that she said "cheese" and she understood what it meant when she said it too. She would smile real big and say it. Then right before we were leaving she kept saying cheese and laughing hysterically. She had a laughing bug.

I wish that I could explain more to Paul about the temple before he goes. I know before I went that there were so many things that people could not tell me. He is cute he was asking about people just walking into the temple, I responded that they have people(temple workers) who check to make sure that you have a recommend. Then he says do they have bodygaurds. I am assuming to make sure that if people wanted to go in without one that they would not be permitted. I wouldn't think that people off the street would want to just walk into the temple, but who knows?

When you get up to the top of the stairs by the door they have this really neat-o cubby hole that is great for taking pictures. I guess the reason that I love the Salt Lake Temple a little more than the rest is because of the hardships that I know the pioneers and my ancestors went through to get here to Salt Lake and the struggles that the pioneers had with getting the temple started and completed, That is why I have choose it for doing my/our temple work.

There was a really neat visitors center on the south side ofthe temple. In it there were these three real cute doll houses that had televisions displayed in them. Alona really wanted to go in but it wasn't that kind of doll house. They had videos on the televisions that talked about different things about the gospel. One of the videos had children telling us where they thought our bodies and our spirits went when we died. I really enjoy those kinds of videos when they are depicted by small children.

From Here to ETERNITY!

Today I made the appointment to be sealed in the temple with my family! As I look back this was never really in my scope of things when I started going back to church before Alona was born. I always loved going to church. When I was a child it was a bit hard to be who I was my parents would ship me, my sister and brothers off to church and without any parental influence there my brother would really act out. He would act out otherwise but not like this. The teachers really had a hard time keeping him in any primary room or in a seat, and his fits were horrendous. At the time I guess it bothered me that he was "my brother". Of course now I love him to death.
Then teenage years were even more difficult I choose different roads that lead me away from the church and not closer to it. Though I kept acquaintances through High School that were members of the ward that I was in, so I still enjoyed going back when straying from my immoral life. Paul was probably the best thing for me. He let me make my own decisions though never really commenting on them he was always there. When being with him I remembered how much I enjoyed church and the gospel and all that it stood for.

I choose to go back to church four days before Alona was born, not because of her just my strong desire and great feelings from before hand. Paul did not share my sentiments about the gospel at first. Many times I felt like giving up on him, but I am glad that I didn't. He didn't like the missionaries, he was very hard to wake up for church and even harder to get him there and keep him going.

Two years ago this month I attended the temple for the first time. It was definetly not what I expected, who knows if it is really what anyone expects. But it was really great. In some ways it amused me to see who really supported me in this. Some family members that I held very dear to me did not come. But a few people from my childhood that had heard about me going to the temple were there without hesitation. I will never forget their support and their strength in the gospel.

It has been really hard to be the stronger one so to speak. Going to church, reading scriptures, etc. During the past five-six months I have definetly been awestruck. One family member asked me, does he enjoy it like you do? Well we definetly have different reasons for going and we definetly get different things out of it. But he has truly become a strength to me. I no longer have to pull it all from within. He is willing to support and lift me up now. He goes to church and holds the priesthood it is amazing.

I am so grateful that we will have the opportunity to be sealed together and with our daughters in the temple this June 3rd, so our little baby will be Born in the Covenant (BIC). This is something that I do not share with my family...my sister, mother, etc.and it saddens me that when I die I will not have the opportunity to be with them. I am grateful also that my brothers went to a loving home and had the opportunity to be sealed to their now parents, my great aunt and uncle. So they are sealed in the family!

I am so happy to be able to be with Paul through ALL ETERNITY and to bring our children.

Mothers Day

Well guess what mothers day I taught in relief society and it turned out better than I thought. With only a few sisters there it actually lasted the whole time and there were a lot of comments. Ruth had taken the girls to target the monday before and gotten gifts for birthday/mothers day. And I opened those after church, they got me two bottles of nail polish I do believe one is just an over coat its yellow with sparklies and pink one too. There were cute cards a hello kitty card from Abbi and a Strawberry Shortcake card from Alona (her hand was traced on the inside of the card!) and a snow cone maker with three different syrups. Ruth and from them got me a two gift cards one from wal-mart and one from target.

We were able to catch Andy(the Bagley missionary) on the phone in time when we got to Marta and Kelly;s house I know that must have made Paul's day he was worrying that he would miss his phone call. And that is basically what we did that day.
I know its a late post, but these are cute pictures. Here is Alona talking to Uncle Andy on the phone. Yes it is surprising from 2-3 after a year she still remembers and misses uncle Andy or "Annie" as she called him before she could pronounce.

And then there is Paul I caught him with a smile! He had fun playing with Brandon, talking with Jared in person and Andy on the phone and I think he even had fun with Alona on the trampoline. And then there was Abbi who found a container of grandmas bubbles. She tried to blow but the wand was not near her mouth when doing this. And when the wand close to her mouth it was a little too close. Then instead of actually using the bubbles she walked across the porch pouring out large portions as she went.

My Huband

What a weird name I know, but that is what I have called Paul for the longest time. We left him at home today to do homework which I really didn't want to do. I hate leaving him on the weekends which is our only time to spend together. But it paid off, he got more than two hundred pages read in his books and to my surprise when I got home with the girls he had been cleaning up knowing that I was coming home. No, this is not a normal thing it is on very rare occasions that he surprises me and does stuff like this. He was doing the dishes when I walked in the door, he had bravely cleaned out our miniature bbq that was filled with ants (by lighting it up) and had wiped down a few things in the kitchen. That is quite a lot, and he did the dishes!!! That is one task that never ends and to not have to do them, thank you!

Then even after all of that I decided to run to Red Box to return a movie. I asked Paul to stay here and let Alona help him clean. He was so sweet, he told her to grab her little duster, I commented that she couldn't reach that. Paul then lifted her up and let her dust the top of the entertainment stand and helped her to do other things as well.

It is awesome having him home, he does so much even though he may not realize and I am truly grateful. Maybe he doesn't always "do" a lot on weekends but just having him here does a lot for the girls they are so lit up and it relieves so much for me. I can actually clean or do something for ten minutes or so and not have to worry about watching Abbi and Alona cause he is watching and playing with them.

routine of exhaustion

I may not have a "normal" job like my sister, my husband, or anyone else that I may come in contact with. But I sure am exhausted by the end of the day.
I have two little girls that seem to like to wake up lately between six thirty and seven a.m. Alona like most mornings came in this morning and told me what was on her agenda, usually its "I'm hungry", but this morning it was "I'm cold". So I folded her up in my blanket with me and of course about ten minutes later Abbi screams "mom, mom, mom" I feed them breakfast, get them dressed and brush their hair. And then with Alona still in her room I insist on helping her make her bed, even though by now I am quite hungry and of course Alona takes 10-20 minutes of cohersing to pull up one to two blankets to the top of her bed and tuck them in. One morning after I asked her to make her bed she layed on it and claimed, "I did make my bed!" with the funniest smurk on her face. When I actually get to eat breakfast after this they both come up to me Abbi with her little "num, num,num" and Alona "I want some". No matter what I feed them they want my breakfast. Then even before I have the chance to put shoes, makeup, or sometimes clothes on they are out the door, up the stairs and ready to play. I atleast get dressedbefore running after them. Then I find Alona down the sidewalk her sister in tow. Alot of the time Abbi is pushing Alona on her little "bike" that Alona got for ger first birthday. When Abbi attempts to ride it she pushes her feet backwards and doesn't end up getting to far, Alona was the same at that age. We usually end up playing with the neighbors until it is time to make lunch, which is a little difficult. Their five year-old knows how to pedal very well and when we are at one house playing she decides to go back to the house that we came from. She does this about five or so times before her mother tells her if she does it again they won't be playing anymore, which usually happens. And that is the end of that, we get to find other things to do throughout the rest of the day.

So we have lunch and I put Abbi down for her nap. On a good day she sleeps two hours and on a not so good day she may sleep thirty minutes. This is my break! I usually get to lunch uninterrupted, the one meal that I usually get to really enjoy. Ocasionally Alona lets me watch the last ten minutes of Family Feud, I like to guess the answers.And I try effortlessly to get Alona to take a nap when I am soo tired. And it never works, so she gets to watch Sesame Street. Then of course when Abbi wakes up they just have to go outside. We go for walks around the block or dig in the dirt, play on the swingset or any other activity that can keep them entertained for two hours before we need to cook dinner.

On Thursday the maintenance man was here fiddling with the sprinklers, it was just what the girls wanted. We had just been on walk hunting for sprinklers that were on that they could play in since we don't have a hose and sprinkler. Abbi ran out into the middle of the yard when he had turned them off and then a few seconds later they got turned back on, she was surprised! Alona picked one sprinkler and just squatted right next to it and actually got quite wet.
It takes me a little more than 30 minutes to fix dinner and then of course they won't eat it. Abbi lately has decided to pick off pieces of food one by one and lay them on the table and just refuse to eat. She has tried to combine her food as well. She put her carrots in her yogurt the other day, thats definetly how you know they are done. They wont eat it after that! And then Alona of course..."I don't want thaaat". So after the meal is fixed I get to find them other things: hot dogs, bologna, fruit cocktail, cucumbers, graham crackers, whatever I am lucky enough to find. Then I get to eat about 20 min later (when Abbi is finished eating it usually seems)

We usually find something to do between then which is about six o'clock and seven when I get tham ready for bed. We read stories, listen to or sing music. Then they get baths and clothes on, blow drying of the hair then we say prayers together, read scriptures (about one page) and then brush their teeth. Alona says her own prayers consisting of about two things that she is thankful for, and then I put her in bed. Abbi then takes anywhere from five minutes to an hour to get to sleep. Usually just rocking her works. But on Thursday after the power went out It took over an hour and a half of trying to rock her in the chair, rocking her in my arms,laying down with her and even pushing her in the stroller. Then at about 9:45 I put her in the play pen and just let her scream for ten minutes. I went back in the living room she was standing up hanging up over the side of the enclosure still screaming...Mom, Mom, Mom. I took her and held her laying down in the bed, and finally the lights were out(she was asleep!). I finally get to sleep after midnight!

Then of course the next morning Alona wakes me up at 6:30, "Mom I'm hungry!"

And on Saturdays we both get to share!! I shared my pop tarts and two hours later when Paul woke up he shares too!

little feats

Abbi is learning to feed herself! She helped me to wake up before seven a.m. this morning and I put her in Alona's booster seat. She usually spills half of the milk off her spoon and down her clothes. But this is definetly an amzing thing, silverware at fifteen mos.

And Alona is a really big helper, she helps out a lot with Abbi, she keeps her entertained or gets things that she needs . She is usually really good at doing her chores and helping with dinner too. In this picture Alona was out on the lawn chair and Abbi really wanted to be up there with her big sister. Alona let her and actually put her arms around her and tried to get Abbi to look at the camera, by calling her name "Abbi look" and gently trying to turn her body.

Escapades

Yay! my birthday is here, well sort of its in the morning. But we celebrated it today, going out and doing stuff part of it. It was great. Paul's mom Marta came to watch the girls. I definetly think too much, I was stressing about leaving the girls for that long. I kept asking Paul, do you think that it is too long for us to leave them, do you think that your mother minds watching them for that long? But anyways she showed up a little after eleven and me and Paul were off. We went to Delton lanes to go bowling. It was so much fun. Neither of us were any good at it, of course Paul was better than me. But he would come off getting a strike on one turn and then on the next turn only hit one pin or may even not any and I would cheer him on no matter how many pins were left standing. I tried to happy about how good I was, after finishing, I turned around,Yay I got one pin!! with a sly look on my face. Twice I actually got nine pins, that was pretty cool. We would definetly like to go back next time and play more than one game, maybe even take the girls.
Then we went and saw Mission Impossible three. Within the first ten minutes I thought that they had shown the ending of the movie. After that I said to Paul, what point is there of watching to the end when we already know that she is going to die. But of course that wasn't really the ending. And unlike other movies that we have watched lately I did not comment on how stupid the ending was. The ending actually turned out to be pretty good.

We went to dinner then at four o'clock to the olive garden. It had been so long since I had been there. I really love that restaurant , their salads are great, but not the kind of thing that you should take home in a box. Their pasta I really enjoy. I got the fettucine alfredo,mmm. Paul got the sausage and peppers it looked pretty good all except the sausage to me, but that was what Paul picked out and ate from his dish all of the sausage was devoured. I kept bugging him to ask the waiter if they gave out free cake if it happened to be your birthday, but he never did. I guess if I want a cake on my birthday, I will have to make it myself. But some of their cakes really did look good. They had a lasagna cake with different layers of numminess and a chocolate mousse cake with other chocolates and chocolate chips on top.
The drive from the theater to the restaurant wasn't that great though. I was quite nautious and the car ride was adding to it. The popcorn really wanted to come up. I was thinking about just driving home and skipping going out for dinner. I didn't know if I would be able to keep food down.
I was so glad to come home and see that the girls had a great time with their grandma. Marta had taken them to the dollar store and Abbi was able to get a ball and Alona got a clifford puzzle. Which they both love the two things that they were able to get. They both played with them when we got home. Abbi says a ball and then tries to throw it, the ball ends up being about a foot in fromt of her. It is a cute elmo beach ball. Alona tries her darndest to put puzzles together, occasionally she needs a few hints though as to where they might match. They also picked flowers from the yard and got happy meals from carls jr. I asked Alona what they did and she says we read and I watched the Heffalump movie with Grandma. Did you watch the movie while sister was sleeping? I asked, "NO!" she said sternly, Abbi was awake!
We enjoyed our day and our night of coming home to our girls. Even though it is difficult when just have a little bit of time with them at night. Alona whined to read scriptures even though it was eight thirty at night when we got home from getting milk. And so I read scriptures to her while they got their pajamas on, with Alona screaming and Abbi climbing all over me. And when that was over, Alona says mom read scriptures I tell her that I did but she was screaming so loud that she could not hear.

Here are pictures of the girls after we got home, they really did not want to come inside if it were up to them they would stay out all night and play outside.

little nubs and flutterflies

I guess that it was Tuesday Abbi wouldn't let me put her down, and her knee was into my abdomen. I felt a jolt something push back as Abbi pushed into me. That was an amazing moment, the first time I thought I might have felt this baby. Tonight I was just feeling around poking at my skin about an inch to the side of my hip and I could feel little nubs as hard as the cartilege on your nose. There was one that was bigger and stood out above the rest and there were other smaller ones as well. At times I could feel movements, little butterfly feelings as I would push in. It is really neat. It makes me wonder how big that the baby is so far, most articles say that he/she should be about four inches, but I could feel something in there that spanned more than that. It makes me think more about what this baby looks like, It brings it all more into reality!I guess thats why they say that the second trimester is a good time to prepare, you are so excited about the baby and everything that is going on and are definetly not as tired as you are in the first or last trimester. I definetly have a little bit more energy compared to just a few weeks ago. Before at about two o'clock I would be so exhausted that my eyes would have a hard time keeping open and I could not keep up with the girls. Today, I actually attempted scrapbooking and making necklaces with Alona. I was a little tired but was able to stay awake and keep up with the two little munchkins.

Mall Madness

Well tonight it started out that we were planning on going to payless to look at shoes for Paul. So we did that, and guess what they only had two pairs of shoes to choose from and neither were the ones that Paul liked. So we decided to go to the mall at 7:oo at night, with both of the girls may I add. I definetly should have thought twice about that one. We went to Valley Fair mall and as luck would have it, they had a payless there too! But all of their shoes in Pauls size were exactly the same. Alona was able to find a pair of white dress shoes, with flowers on them they werem't the cutest but we let her pick. Looking down the walk way I saw a JCPenny's, YAY! Maternity Clothes I was thinking!!! With a disgruntled look Paul agreed and dragged the reluctant girls along. Abbi wanted to stop at every vending machine along the way and put her hands in them. We found the maternity section! Of there wasn't much and most of it was plain, after trying on about ten pairs of capris with a one year old trapped in the dressing room screaming I still hadn't found "it". One more glance around and I found what was on my mind. A pair of shorts/capris that I could wear that weren't too long for my short legs and not too short. Definetly happy! It ended up being thirty seven dollars for three pairs, not bad for a department store or any other store really. Even though I hate to spend money, I love shopping!


Yeah, these are my new shorts and my 15 week pregnant belly, they go together great! And my top is from Kohls, I likes it too!

Do I find out?

I have always thought that it would be so fun to not know what the gender of a baby would be and be surprised at the birth of the baby. But I have always been a fickle person. With having two girls now I think that it would be so fun if this was a boy to go out and get little outfits and cute little things. We saved our tax returns this year, so I would actually be able to do that. The ultrasound would already be next month. If it is a boy we already have the named picked out and I have since I was about fourteen. But with not knowing as right now there are a million names that we could choose for a girl and we never seem to agree on one that the other person likes.We are also contemplating looking for a three bedroom, who knows if we will find the one that we need(within our price range) and of course we will try to find one closer to Paul, it is too hard always being this far away. Him not being able to come home in between work and school or at any other time. It is also really hard to find babysitters for when I need to go to appointments family is not close enough to help out too much with that. We have felt real strong that we need to do this. We hate moving and definetly do not have the time and I don't have the ability to do it by myself. If we do find a three bedroom I will be able to decorate a nursery, how fun! I will be so excited if I get to!