Busy bee

We are busy folk over here in these parts lately! Tons of new things are happening, most of which I will elaborate on later, since apparently, Kota does not like me just sitting here on the computer while she rolls around on our bed. Here are the cliff notes:

{1}

We are moving! Out with the old, in with the new, my friend! I'm actually super excited for this because it will mean NO MORE disgusting, filthy, cheap apartment carpet, NO MORE teensy, tiny, secluded kitchen, and certainly MOST importantly, NO MORE STAIRS!

ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!

So even though this wonderful apartment has served us well, it's time to move on, sister.

Cheers to new places to host dinner parties and redecorating!

{2}

I haven't started Kota on a hardcore schedule yet, but sadly, the time is approaching.

I just love how she sleeps whenever, wherever!

It's so easy!

But every baby needs a schedule in this household, so that's what we shall do. It's funny to think back on when I was so intense about Carter's routine. Literally the DAY he turned two months, it was all hands on deck with nap times, feedings and diaper changes, even though none of it really "took" until about three months. Even when Carts was a few weeks old I was doing all this research on exactly how I should enforce this wild thing called a "schedule," and calling my sister in the hopes that she would spill some trade secrets. It was like operating the Pentagon! Now Kota is a few days past the three month mark and I've hardly stressed about the situation at all. It will all work itself out within the next few weeks :)

{3}

Speaking of looming milestones, potty training is right around the corner!

 This will be huge, and I'm quite excited for it, although not so excited for the notorious messiness of the entire process. Anyway, this won't be happening until we get settled in our new abode, so no need to worry about it as of right now. Besides, changing two diapers is easy, and why the heck would I want to go and screw that up? We all remember the big boy bed disaster, right??

{4}

All of a sudden I just want to sit on my bootay during nap times. Literally just lay there on the couch. I would rather run around like a wolf was chasing me during Carter's 20 minute Toy Story pre-nap session, cleaning up as much as I can, than tidy up properly while he sleeps. Oh, well. Chad and I laugh about it. We're moving in a few weeks anyway, so I should get a free pass... Yep, that's what I think!

So cheers to it almost being Friday, and tonight being the last of Chad's school week!

Woohooo!

Movin' on up

So last night when Chadly got off work, he bought 20 lotto tickets.

He told me this as I started the long drive home from a family birthday party, so I had lots of car time to contemplate just how we would spend our spoils once we, ya know, won.

My mom was with me at the time, so the two of us just laughed when Chad explained that we were, in fact, shooting for the Mega Mills, but y'all, in my head, I was serious.

As soon as I got home and saw our tickets to millionaire-dome, I asked Chad what the heck we would do with our money.

We started talking about how, obviously, we would buy up a ton of land across the U.S. and develop it, and then, of course, buy ourselves a few dozen homes around the world, all after paying off our family's homes, setting up our children with their Ivy League college tuition accounts, AND creating trust funds for our brothers.

TRUST FUNDS FOR OUR BROTHERS!

Which they wouldn't be able to access until they were 30 so that way we wouldn't be killing their ambition during their 20's!

What the hell were we talking about?!

We were being totally serious!

And then, in order to make our several homes that we purchased  around the globe "make sense," we would just have to buy ourselves a private jet. But then upon further thought, we decided that those private jets are sketchy because how many commercial jets have crashed within the past 10 years? Not as many as private jets!

So we scratched that, and decided to just stick with first class, which I was totally fine with because I actually enjoy the airport experience.

So the issue of the jet was settled.

Anyway, 8:00 finally rolled around and the numbers were announced, and we totally did not win.

Dashed were my dreams of owning a villa in the south of France, gone were the trust funds!

Oh, well.

I guess we will have to earn our cashola the old fashion way.

{Or by playing again next week! Woohooo for no winners!}

Me and my girl

Sometimes it still shocks me that we have a baby girl, which is ridiculous because we are almost exactly THREE MONTHS IN at this point! It's just so unbelievable for some reason! Anyway, right this very minute the little lady and I are girlin' it up in my bedroom while Uncle Todd and Chadly are having man time around our kitchen table. I took her back for the last feeding of the night and just decided to treat myself to a little alone time with the lass since moments like these seem so far and few between.

Anyway, she is now asleep and it seems that my mind has finally caught up to the fact that I have a girl.

I HAVE A GIRL!

DID YOU HEAR THAT?!

A GIRL!

So in celebration of girl-power-awesomeness, guess what THIS mama will be doing with THAT little baby preciousness in the coming years.

We will be...

Getting mani/pedi's.

Discussing what THIS shade of pink says about a person, versus THAT shade of pink.

Joking about how Daddy and Carter are just "such boys."

Making Daddy and Carter cookies.

Telling Daddy and Carter that since the girls made the cookies, the boys have to clean up :)

Buying ballet shoes together.

Buying tap shoes together.

Buying pointe shoes together.

....Or buying some crazy piece of equipment like a lacrosse stick so that she might go kick some major bootay in a sport where I have no idea what I'm talking about in...Which would be totally fine and awesome!

Picking out which color tights she wants to wear to church.

Telling each other how icky some flowers are because they attract those monsters known to many as "bee's."

Rhinestoning dance costumes together.

Talking about how he said THAT, and could we believe it?! 

Saying things like, "MEN! You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em!," all while throwing our arms up in the air like we just don't care!

Swapping recipes over the phone.

Discussing the legitimacy of a college student's diet..."No, Kota, I do not think it's a good idea to buy a $5 foot long from Subway and to split it up throughout the day...I would never have done that...." Even though I totally did just that on a daily basis, which I will tell her and then we will laugh.

Talking about pink. Did I already mention that?

Ahhh, that was just GLORIOUS! I can't wait to list girly girly girly things again when the inspiration strikes!

SO MUCH FUN!

So yay for being a mama of a GIRL!

Those Duggars...

Y'all, my love for the Duggars runs pretty deep.

Chad makes fun of me, and people think my small addiction is slightly creepy, but bottom line is this:

They are pleasant folk and I dig 'em.

I just came from watching their season finale, something I was quite looking forward to since it was an hour long, and horrifyingly, about the baby daughter they lost to miscarriage.

Oh my gosh.

Bawling.

Literally.

End of the world tears, to the max.

Every part of my body hurt watching this episode, and it seemed like I was going to burst at the seams. 

What had happened was that Michelle lost the baby right before her 18 week ultrasound, where they were going to find out the sex of their sweet little one. Unfortunately, they couldn't find a heartbeat. Immediately Jim Bob and Michelle prayed, both while crying.

When they told the family, the pain really set in for me. 

How do you tell your family information like that?

As the episode continued, I thought to myself,

"What the heck am I doing watching this? I'm literally torturing myself."

But they were handling themselves so gracefully, I had to follow through.

During the last 15 minutes, I basically wanted to claw my eyes out.

I started to think about how incredibly joyous young family life has been for Chad and I, and how I wholly have taken that for granted.

The arrival of Carter truly, deeply showed me the meaning of life, and how easy that had all been!

Pregnany? Piece of cake! Delivery? Text book, all the way, man! Sleep deprivation? When?!

When we wanted another baby, wham-bam-shishkum-bam,

THERE SHE WAS!

Healthy. Alert. Incredibly beautiful. Silly little mohawk. Everything.

Incredible. Just incredible.

Watching a family experience loss like that was incredibly difficult, but man, am I glad I watched.

And I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, 

but thank you, you wonderful Duggars, for sharing that experience with everyone.

It was truly touching, and makes me love my family that much more.

The end.

{Ahh, tears!}

Should I do it....?

So I had these sweeping plans to chop off my long blond locks in lieu of some sexy summer shortness, but I think I'm already having separation anxiety! Can I do that to myself? 

This ole' mane has been mid-back length for my entire life, and save for one drastic cut {4 inches during my freshman year of college}, I have never felt the need for any major change. But now I have to do something, I just don't know if I can do that!

Here's another big question: 

should I go brunette?

{!!!!!!!!}

This would be huge.

Humongous.

Gargantuan.

Larger than life.

Tremendous.

Outrageous.

Should I do it?!

{She asks herself!}

It would be a major change.

If I went brunette, I seriously would have to pile on the make up everyday to make up for the lack of pretty pretty dark eyebrows, but I think that would be a welcomed challenge. The only thing that would not be so good is those days where I don't put make up on. I would look like a ghost, pretty much.

I don't know!

DECISIONS, DECISIONS!

Random.

Y'all the creative juices have apparently stopped flowing. That's okay, though. All the more time for random thoughts and a slight update on this glorious Tuesday morning.

{1}

When Chadly has unexpected work things come up, I turn into a thug. A straight up thug. I started thinking thoughts like, "What the heck, CHAD'S WORK??! Release him back to me!" Completely irrational. Then once I come out of my brief thug-life, I start thinking of things I should be doing while he's out of the house... Like watching 19 Kids and Counting.

:)

{2}

When I left the kiddies alone in the living room for LESS THAN 2 SECONDS to take out the wonderful Pillsbury Dough Boy croissants, Carter decided it would be a good idea to pick up Kota and try to bring her to me. Incredibly, no one got hurt, but man was I freaked out when I found Kota lying in a place where I had NOT left her. 

Sheesh, that was sort of painful to write out! 

No more leaving the kids alone, even for the briefest of moments!

{3}

Last week I let Carter do something sort of weird, and I even knew it was odd as I was doing it. I let him have a snack in bed...Right before bed time....Like an adult does with cookies. Anyway, what had happened was that he had had a super early dinner, so I felt weird sending him to bed on such an awkwardly full/empty stomach. So I let him eat Cheerios while I read him books. Now he asks for snacks every night and gets mad when I don't give them to him. Aren't I a good mom?

{4}

I feed Kota like a newborn. With Carter, I was on a strict let's-try-to-stretch-out-your-feedings-to-the-three-hour-mark by this time, but with her, I just love it too much! Maybe it's because I feel like I don't hold her enough, even though she's constantly being shuttled around either by myself of Chad. Oh, well. It's how I do, man.

Anyway, cheers to random thoughts! 

girl vs. boy

Now that a good two-and-a-half months has passed since we found out we forever will be a family with both a little boy and a darling girl, it has hit me: I now know why people say "boys are easier."

I used to think that statement was so sad because it always came from parents of both boys and girls. How horrible for their baby girls to hear such a thing! But now I get it. It has nothing to do with the fact that girls, in comparison to boys, are notoriously accompanied by an inordinate amount of sass, nor the fact that little ladies have rendered {unfairly so, because some mom's may like to play dress up with their sons...} the reputation of costing a pretty penny as they grow older {ie. - my parents probably could have taken out a second mortgage based on how much dough they shelled out to send my sister and I to those outrageous high school dances... A new set of acrylic nails was always a must. Sick, man}.

Anyway, to me, the reason people say boys are easier is because when you think of raising a little man, you think of football, trucks, Buzz Lightyear and playing in dirt. Bugs, race cars, mommy-son-cuddle-time and fist pounds with daddy. Wearing precious Vans and blue jeans.
You see yourself having conversations like...

What was that, my boy? You don't like sports? THAT'S OKAY, SON! We will just enroll you in some awesome academic club! No matter what, we will find something for you to love! Easy peasy!

It will all work out.

Yes, there is the whole "I need to raise my son to be a good man" thing, but surely all the hours of tossing around the football, making choo-choo sounds and dropping him off in Sunday school each week will result in  an upstanding sort of adult, right?

Anyway, obviously it's all much, much deeper than that, but it just seems like it will be such fun. 

Breezy.

Our little boy will grow up to be a great man, and the path to that point will be riddled with fun activities.

But holy moly, when I think of raising Kota, I become intimidated.

Not because I'm scared that one day she will take a misstep, because I know that will happen, but because of the things I need to teach her.

To raise a virtuous young lady will take more than just bi-weekly pedicures, it will take an incredible amount of intentional parenting. Specific steps will need to be taken in order to cultivate an atmosphere free of animosity between the two of us, an atmosphere where there's more listening going on, rather than talking at each other. I want her to grow and be aware of the intricacies of being a daughter, sister, eventual friend, and someday, a woman. To be kind, loving, soft-hearted, compassionate, genuine and strong. To love God and Jesus and Mary. To have the strength to stand up against peer pressure, and to blaze her own, unique path.
To me, it's overwhelming how much I want this for her.

It will be the challenge of my life, one I'm more than ready to take on.
Open communication will be the route we will take to get through the rough times that are sure to come with these bambinos, and we will become all the better for it.

So every night I pray for the strength to put these thoughts into action, because, in the words of good ole' Jackie Kennedy, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much."

And ain't that the truth, sister?